MINWR Alligator

[Robert Amoruso]

Taken at Merritt Island NWR on 10/7/07. I was photographing near one of the deeper impoundments pre-dawn when this gator approached me in the water. He would swim up, hold motionless in the water and stare at me then swim away only to return quickly. After creating a bunch of images of him, I moved away only to discover why he was doing this, I was standing right where he wanted to cross the berm road to the adjacent impoundment.

THis was my favorite of the bunch and an image I had envisioned for sometime. I only photograph these guys in good light, mostly in the water and try to capture the primal, ancient look they have. I was quite please to finally get close to the image I want. I would have preferred to have the nose in focus too (next time two image - one of eyes in focus and one of nose in focus to be combined) and a bit more of an s-curve inthe tail, but all-in-all I am happy with this one.

I am interested in cropping suggestions - I have room all around to crop different though this is not a large crop, he is big in the frame. Also interest if anyone sees any color casts. I am endlessly tweaking the colors on this one and change my mind about once a week.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
1/80 sec, f/ 5.6, Av, EC +1 2/3
ISO: 800, Lens: 600mm

Added after posting: Now that I posted it I see a magenta cast. This cast is not in the TIFF.

[Robert Amoruso]

Repost with Saturation reduced for red and magenta. Look better? I reworked the TIFF file I created the JPG from.

[D. Robert Franz]

Ok repost looks good. A tough situation with the high key lighting but you pulled it off nicely. Nice catchlights give the gator lifel As you mentioned more DOF to get the nose in focus would have been nice but it looks like you were running out of light. In that case go for the eyes... I think a bit of CW rotation would help. Overall a strong effort Robert....

[Robert Amoruso]

Thanks Robert. When I took it, the tripod was level (I use the Gitzo leveling base) but I will try the rotation and see how it looks. Light was early morning just after the sun came up. The high-key affect was what I was after so I am glad you like it and local contrast enhancement accentuated that. Was not much I could do with DOF in that light but should have took two images and combined an in-focus nose with this image. Something I am trying to do more lately.

Thanks for your helpful comments.

[D. Robert Franz]

Robert sometimes I'm sure my bubble is just right and the pics still need rotation. Perhaps my bubble is off!!!! Looks like about .5 CW

[Robert Amoruso]

Robert,

I would agree, the bubbles are not always that accurate and like you I will go by what looks right. I will try it and repost after I get some more comments. Thanks for the help as I really did not notice the CW thing.:)

[Bill Keown]

Really like the image, especcially the slight S curve that draws the eye. The second post seems to have taken care of the magenta cast but does not appear to be as sharp? Although CW rotation might present the gator straight on I'm not sure that it will improve the image.

[Robert Amoruso]

Bill,

I am seeing it. Weird. All I did was create a H/S layer and remove red and magenta. Thanks for the feedback

[Stephen Stephen]

Nice capture here Robert. You and Robert have covered all of the potential nits.