Northern Gannet landing

[Steve Metildi]

Incoming Gannet on Bonaventure Island with a big wad of kelp to be used for nesting material. Hopefully with my new monitor I sharpened this properly for the web.

1D MKIII, 70-200 f/2.8, f/6.3, 1/2000 sec, ISO 500, Fill Flash

Steve

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great landing pose, wing position and the seaweed adds to it. The color temperature looks a tad too warm on my monitor. Thanks for sharing!

[carole wiley]

I wish the kelp were not blocking the foot on the left and the image looks a bit flat and dark from here. Love the pose and crop. Maybe a bit of contrast woul make the tail stand out a bit more? That is wonderful! I am soooo jealous.

[Rene Quenneville]

Wow! Beautiful flight/landing picture. This is a very difficult subject to capture with proper exposure of the underside. Your use of the fill flash is well done. Do you know the flash compensation number?

[Steve Metildi]

Thanks Rene. I used a 580EX II flash set in Manual Mode at 1/1 with High Speed Synch activated. I also had a Canon CP-E4 external battery pack charging the flash to improve recycle times. As you know since you've been to Bonaventure these guys land very close. Since I was usually photographing Gannets that were landing around the same general distance from me manual flash worked very well and with consistent results.

Wish I could get back there again soon but it's a real long trip from southern California.

Steve

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Lovely high key image. Liked it a lot - especially the way the lower feathers of the wings blend into the BG.
TFS.

[Milo Burcham]

Beautiful as always, Steve. Looks like you are getting around, too. Nice work.