Gannet portrait

[Deborah Harrison]

Bass Rock in the Borders area between Scotland and England is one of the prime gannet rookeries in the world. I was fortunate enough to be able to land there this June.

Nikon 300S 70-200 f2.8
ISO 200 f5.6 1/1600

[annmpacheco]

I love it, all I can say is "take me to your leader!"

[Herb Houghton]

Hi Deborah. Great eye contact on the gannet. I would sharpen the eyes / top of his head and remove some noise in the BGD. I also would remove the bluish item in the bottom right corner. Great capture.

[Lance Peters]

Love these birds Deborah - and the rookeries are so much fun to visit - Have the ONLY 1 on mainland australia about 1 1/2 hours from were I live.

Is this a large crop??

Looks a little noisy in the BG - some NR should take care of that - some selective sharpening of the eyes might also be of value - Might have bumped the ISO up a little and gone for some more DOF.

TFS - make me want to go visit them :)

[pat lillich]

what beautiful blue eyes --- I love it when they look straight at you like this --- gorgeous!

[Jory Griesman]

I'm a big fan of the direct stare, as this image depicts. Does look a bit noisy, and a large crop, I assume, at a max of 200 mm on your zoom. Only other thing I'd like to add is the blue rim around the eye (I don't know if there's a name for this) looks more turquoisey than it usually is, possibly oversaturated or the hue changed a bit.

[Deborah Harrison]

Thanks for the recomendations, the background of this image consisted of thousands of other gannets with my short lens it was tough to isolate! However noise reduction and enhancing the eyes has really helped.

Lance, you are fortunate leaving near a rookery. Bass Rock is tough to get to, only certain days, 11 people max, weather dependent and booked up as soon as the dates are announced.