Galapagos #8: Showoff

[Arthur Morris]

This image was created at Punta Suarez, Hood Island, one of the highlights of any Galapagos trip that visits. It is way to the north and off the beaten track for most boats. Waved Albatross displaying. I went to a pano crop to eliminate the half of this bird's mate that was both facing it and in the frame.

Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evalautive metering +1/3 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/7.1 set manually.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Great expression, nice tongue. Works well with vertical crop, but do wish I could see the feet, or at least space for the feet.
Well exposed. Not much detail in the whites, but suspect that is from the particular feathers here, not from any exposure issue.
Nice catchlight. Natural?

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

From where my tripod was, this was the very best framing.... I would rather this COMP than having the top of the bird's head and the feet touching the frame edges. Cut don't clip. The catchlight is natural.

[ChasMcRae]

You did a good job including only 2/3's of the bird and I think because my eye is pulled toward the facial expression,bill open and coloring around the face/bill.
I have rarely been able to pull this off and usually revert to cropping down to head,face and perhaps a little of the shoulder.
The two dark horizontal lines next to the breast are distracting to me whereas the background on the other side is pleasing. The dark areas may be too big to tackle and look good.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Its beautiful guruji, what a grand pose with that open bill, expo A+, the catch light works wonders... really loved it..

[Michael Zajac]

Nice open mouth. Those birds look huge. I like the tight framing.

[RAM MALLYA]

lovely BG and the pose of the bird

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks all. Michael, the open bill is actually the bill motion frozen as part of the high speed bill clacking that is part of the dance routine.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Artie, liked the crop a lot. Superb freeze of the beak and exposure spot on as always.

[Fabs Forns]

Great expression on that face. I'm fine with the feet, but would like some canvas added on the left since he's really looking out of the picture to include the tail. Neat birds they are.

[Arthur Morris]

Great expression on that face. I'm fine with the feet, but would like some canvas added on the left since he's really looking out of the picture to include the tail. Neat birds they are.

Thanks Fabs. As you can see in the ORIG, not much room to our left. I did eliminate just a bit of the mate to get as much room as I have. And as is, there is still 3-4X as much room in front as behind. :) I do not understand what you mean by "... he's really looking out of the picture to include the tail."

[denise ippolito]

Artie, It was wonderful to experience the bill clacking and the mating dances that were going on that day. I like the sharpness and the waved feather detail.

[Fabs Forns]

I do not understand what you mean by "... he's really looking out of the picture to include the tail."

What I mean is that in order to include the tail, his had is more out of the picture, there's more room behind him than in front. I's sure O'Toole's trick of adding canvas would work well if you wanted to. Not a big issue, though.

[David Thomasson]

Love it, Art! That may be clacking behavior, but he looks like the happiest creature there ever was. :D

I would keep the original width and clone out the mate. In fact I would (and did) chop the legs off and blur the background entirely.

http://a.imageshack.us/img132/2682/artalbatross.jpg