Giant Southern Petral

[Jay Gould]

This tube nose - used for expelling significant amounts of saline - gave us hours of pleasure watching them glide and dive and turn behind the ship.

Camera: 7D
Capture date/time: 31 Dec 09; 8:58AM
Light condition: mixed
Lens: 300 f/2.8
Focal length: 420mm
Extender: 1.4
Distance: 26m
Tube: none
Flash/Comp: no
ISO: 800
Exp Prog: Tv
Speed: 1/1250 sec
Aperture: f/7.1
Exp Comp: +1 1/3
Metering: Evaluative
WB: Auto
AF Drive: AI Servo
Tripod: no
Filter: None
Crop: none - added a small bit of canvass at bottom
Processed in LR 3 (beta) and then CS4 -
plus Topaz Suite and Pixel Genius Sharpening.
All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Nice pose Jay. Looks like noise under the wings to me, did you try to lighten it? Well done to capture the flight shot.

[Jay Gould]

Nice pose Jay. Looks like noise under the wings to me, did you try to lighten it? Well done to capture the flight shot.

Hi Jackie, yes there was/is some noise and I did run Topaz Denoise and also lighten the entire image. This was shot the first day out and I was just figuering out settings. I will be posting more images of this lovely petral that were shot later in the trip and exposed much more to the right. It was pretty dark in the morning; perhaps could have opened up a bit more and sacrificed DOF for more light on the bird. Thanks,

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Seem like you have the focus right on, well done. Maybe more room on the left for bird to fly into.

[Jay Gould]

Seem like you have the focus right on, well done. Maybe more room on the left for bird to fly into.

Hi, this image needed room all around! I only added canvass at the bottom as the tip was practically against the side of the frame. Had the petral been any closer I would have had to either forgo the image or clipped the wings. I have no problem adding or subtracting anything as long as disclosure is made that the image has been changed from the original capture.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Jay - thinking this might have been closer to +2EV always going to be high key.
Like the pose and eye contact - the lightening has not helped the details under the wings.
Looking forward to seeing more :)

[Jay Gould]

Hi Jay - thinking this might have been closer to +2EV always going to be high key.
Like the pose and eye contact - the lightening has not helped the details under the wings.
Looking forward to seeing more :)

Mate, before the lightening there were no details - it was simply wrongly dark!

Not sure what you mean by +2EV. :confused:

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Jay

I like how your are filling the frame and making sharp images !!!

Exposure wise I agree with Lance on the + 2EV basically if you point the camera up at the bird just open two stops, keep in mind the sun is above the bird and you are shooting the shaded side. Probably will be needing even more. Any time you open shadows the image will get a muddy look !! btw do take into account what is under the bird, when shooting on a beach the sands acts as a giant reflector needing less comp !!! Looking forward to more !!!

[Harold Davis]

looks like you did well to salvage this one. might lighten the eye a little too.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Looks like overcast and horrible :) white sky. Quite often I have opened up over 2 stops sometimes even went +3. You got to blow the sky off the blown scale I think. :) Good effort though mate,