Swallow-tailed Gull tight preening

This image was created on one of our two North Seymour landings on July 23 on the 2019 Galapagos Photo-Cruise of a Lifetime IPT. I used the handheld Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x teleconverter (at at 560mm) and the high mega-pixel Sony Alpha a7R III Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 3200. Exposure determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear dial: 1/160 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. AWB at 5:48pm when a large cloudy covered the sun. Flexible Spot (S) Continuous/tracking AF was active at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was placed on the gull’s left eye.

The key here was getting the AF point on the gull's eye. Moving the AF point around with SONY is an absolute pleasure.

Galapagos 2020?

If you are interested in learning about a possible Galapagos Photo-Cruise of a Lifetime, September 29-October 13 on the boat (travel dates: 27 SEPT to Guayaquil and fly home on 14 OCT) please get in touch via e-mail. I will need at least eight deposits by December 1, 2019. Details will be announced here and on the blog soon.

Learn more about the creation of this image in the blog post here.

with love, artie

A lovely portrait Artie! The color palette of blacks, grey and whites makes those small pops of red stand out. Perfectly exposed and well done creating such dept in a scene that is so intimate.
Oddly enough I don't think the main focus is on the eye though but rather on the base of the bill. It is not a huge deístraction for me but I wish more of the head was sharp.

Not loving this one because of the OOF feather curving over and above the bill.
This is an image where it would have been better to not use the extender and thus get more DOF and just crop a bit more. You have lots of pixels with that a7!
I find that the vertical line created by that OOF feather is distracting.
I do like the details in the black face and that red eye ring is gorgeous.
Gail

All of the bill should have been covered since it is OOF...
It looks noisy, did you bother with NR, and if you did I would say the Sony
is very noisy at iso3200.

Well this is different for sure. The reds around the eyes gives the image a good colour boost. It don't look noisy here, maybe a little posterisation on the top left.

Will

Thanks, all, for your interesting comments. Iva, I think that you are right. I can selectively sharpen the eye. Gail -- the o-o-f line of the wing does not bug me at all. I am now using the 61-MP a7R III. Wanna buy a Nikon 600? :). Dan -- I am not seeing any noise at all, same as Bill.

with love, artie

Thanks again, Ivan. For the repost, I selectively sharpened the eye and also added 50 points of CYAN to the REDs in Selective Color to tone down the RED. I think that the overdone FREDs contributed to the eye looking less than sharp.

with love, artie

Excellent Image. I love eyes and fine feather details.

TFS

I rather like it. Quite a 3-D feel to this one. Although I understand Gail's concern about the feather, I see it as the open wing that the gull is digging into. Pretty intimate preening image.

I like it. My eye goes right to that red eye ring. Detail looks quite nice. What a gorgeous looking gull.