Turkey Vulture

[Peter Seidel]

Shot near Moss Landing, CA (between Santa Cruz and Monterey) - shot on the beach. Lots of fog. Nikon D300s and Nikon 70-200mm VR II. There were actually three vultures when I arrived. This one stayed around for awhile and let me get a little closer. Processed in LR. In PP I added some contrast to compensate for the heavy fog.

f/6.3, 1/160 sec., ISO 200, no flash, exp bias +1, handheld. Cropped. Shot at 200mm (300mm equiv).

Comments welcome.

Pete

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image of Vulture.Very nice composition with nice feel of fog.Nice perch and BG too.
I love the bird and details.Wish HA would have been towards you ,though nice eye contact.

Regards,
Satish.

[Marina Scarr]

Nice job with exposure and nice feather details. He appears to be peering over his "kingdom." I like the feel but wish for a little better angle for more eye contact.

[Peter Seidel]

Thank you Satish. This is cropped a bit so I have room if I need to re-work it. Considering how much it's cropped I was pleased with the detail. I have to agree on the HA - I did get a couple of shots with a better angle, but unfortunately the quality of those wasn't very good. For overall detail I think this was the best of the group.

Pete

Excellent image of Vulture.Very nice composition with nice feel of fog.Nice perch and BG too.
I love the bird and details.Wish HA would have been towards you ,though nice eye contact.

Regards,
Satish.

[Peter Seidel]

Thank you Marina. I agree re the head angle, as I mentioned to Satish, a bit better angle would have improved this one a couple steps. One of those times when I was happy with what I got considering the poor planning (went to the beach with just my shorter lens). Didn't make things better after seeing virtually no activity the remaining days I was there. Live and learn. I haven't scanned through the entire collection - if I find a quality capture with a better face angle I'll be sure to post.

Pete

Nice job with exposure and nice feather details. He appears to be peering over his "kingdom." I like the feel but wish for a little better angle for more eye contact.

[Doug Brown]

Feather detail and DOF are excellent. Nice job compensating for the fog in post. I agree with the others about the head angle.