Marine Iguana

[Rachel Hollander]

Taken in the Galapagos Islands.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/500
f8.0
ISO 400

C&C welcome and appreciated.

Thanks,
Rachel

[Sabyasachi Patra]

You got the dept of field right. I wish the eye was better lighted. I wish to see a vertical as well. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, these are great animals to photograph, very 'dinosaur' looking.

Agree about the DOF and I feel the light on the eye is spot on, any brighter and it would look odd. There is detail and colour, albeit subtle. Not sure if a little selective colouring might work, but again, may look false? The 'issue' I have is the head needs to be either a little more to the right, giving more of a side profile, or face on where you see both eyes. for me it's half way, but again, a personal POV. In addition the tail in the BG cutting through the head is a slight distraction, could knock the BG back a bit. Might review again when I am back on Thursday. I guess the white 'blobs' are water droplet reflections?

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Sabyasachi and Steve for the comments. Yes, the "white blobs" are water droplet reflections. Steve- I'm not sure what you mean by knocking the BG back, is that via darkening it a little? Thanks again,

Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Yep, might help? Try it with exposure.

[Alfred Forns]

Might go for a vertical to minimize the oof highlights and have that wonderful face larger in frame !! ... something else you could try in the future is doing an HDR of the animal !!! They usually stay still :) Have been trying with some birds with interesting results !!! Strong portrait and like it a lot !!!

[DanWalters]

Really like the details on the face. Agree a vertical would really work for this image.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Al and Dan. So I took all of the suggestions and cropped to a vertical 8 x 10, selectively darkened the background and selectively lightened the shadow on the eye. Here's the result. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Rachel, did you work on the Hi res file or the web version as the quality looks slightly less?

I did what you did but added some more USM also, but cropped to your original size 683px high, however working on the LT is not ideal. I do think the crop has strengthened the composition. I found that I was shooting f/16, f/22 & even f/32 to get everything sharp, then gave up and shot how I wanted things to be.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Steve - I worked on the high res version after the conversion to JPEG but before resizing for the web. Do you recall what you did for USM because when I tried a round of sharpening via USM I thought the image got too sharp in the snout area? Yours looks good though. Thanks again.

Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Rachel I do, but remember I applied it to your web image and therefore it won't have the same effect on your hi res JPEG. 99/0.3/0.

On a separate matter, can I assume you have not sent the RAW file yet, as discussed? If you have, I have not received it!!! However if you haven't great, I am back pm tomorrow so mail it then :)

Thanks
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Steve - thanks. I sent the RAW image that day. I wonder if there was a problem because it is so big or if it wound up in your spam filter. If you don't have it when you return I will try to resend it. Thanks again,

Rachel

[Harshad Barve]

what a dude he is :D , Mighty fine image and repost took it over the top
TFS