Grey Seal at Donna Nook

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hello folks ,
looked for a seal image to post and stumbled over this one , not only from the aestethic POV , also have a look at the techs given !!

Canon EOS 1D MK IV
EF 800IS L 5,6
HH lying in the dirt supported by my elbows to get the low POV.

F 10 ; Iso 3200 ; 1/60 sec ; Manual Exposure with this remarkable lens, sadly very heavy to handle and not my own , got it from Uncle Canon for my trip.

Processed in PhotoNinja and PS CC ; FF no crop; i am not sure of the overall reddish cast but the sun was very low and there was overall red/yellow light dominating the scene, so suggestions from you would be great , getting rid of the cast or not ?

Your comments are welcome.

Thank you all for commenting in my last thread.

Cheers Andreas

[keith mitchell]

Andreas you have got some excellent detail, looked hard for a fault without success.

Keith.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Excellent IQ, especially given the techs!
I have never seen these so can't comment on the colour - though the overall mood and colour is pleasing to me.
I wish the head was ever-so-slightly turned towards us. As I'm sure you do too...

[Nancy Bell]

Awesome details! I think the warm colors are perfectly fine as the bkgd also shows the same. The grains of sand along the neck add interest as they catch the light so well. Great, simple & strong composition.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andreas - Amazing sharpness given the ss and handholding. Nice IQ at ISO 3200 too. Great detail but I do think there is a red color cast, especially when I put the eyedropper on the whiskers. If it were mine, I would drop the red, you still get the warmth just not as red.

TFS,
Rachel

[dankearl]

I also think you have a red cast to it, but I like the details and the subject a lot.

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Andreas, excellent details, love the catch light in the eye. Yes, a little bit head turn towards you would be great. I think you can drop the Red a little bit on the seal without losing the warmth of the image. TFS. Loi

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thank you folks for looking and leaving your thoughts on this frame.
I listened to your suggestions about the reds and tried it, but for me it is not working i will loose the overall look and feel which i quite like , so i stick with the reds.
Feel free to make an RP to illustrate how you would see the colors, would be nice.

Thank you Andreas

[Andre Pretorius]

Very strong image Andreas.

Amazing detail for HH, did you have elbow pads?

Have never seen this species, can not comment on colour/cast.

The wet sand sticking to fat rolls as was he lying, give extra depth to image.

Yip, a slight head turn would be a bonus, but then no longer a profile image.

Well done, hope you thanked the Uncle!

Andre

[Gabriela Plesea]

...I wish Uncle Nikon would lend me a bigger lens too, but I guess I must deserve it first!

Hello Andreas,

This is so vivid, I want to stretch my hand and touch the fur of this seal! I must say I like the colours here very much, I noticed you had to go up on the ISO but this image looks like it has been taken in golden light, whatever you did during Processing works so well! Sharp where needs be and I like the BG very much, so soft and that tad of pink makes me think of a sunrise.

This is lovely Andreas, very well done, congratulations!

[Steve Kaluski]

Andreas, is this going more to your thoughts? I would also even the BKG colour top left corner.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thank you Steve, nicely done with your secret weapons, but this a tad too far , by knowing you are working off ground, but i would try half way between yours and my OP , so whatever you did , group it and set to 50% opacity , and i would by it.
Could you please give me some feedback about the rest of the image , would like to know your thoughts.
Wonder that you said nothing about the combo i used ,with the very low SS and HH on elbows.
I got the idea to,post this referring to Nancy and yourself about pushing the MK IV above a 1000 Iso, so think here is a very good example of pushing the cam , and it is not even at the limit, secret is just to overexpose to the limit and then move on from there.
WDYT?
Cheers Andreas

[Andreas Liedmann]

Gabriela and Andre thanks for stopping by and leaving some kind words for me.
Andre no elbow pads , just lying in soft wet sand , becoming soaking wet after some 30minutes approaching these guys crawling on my belly ,trying not to drop the big glass into the pools of shallow water or dropping it into the sand.
They are used to humans and you can approach them fairly easy, but as soon as you get up , they will be alerted and eventually ran over the pups that are born at that time, Winter , bloody cold and strong winds at that time.So it not as nice and comfortable as it evtl is looking like.
And yes i said , thank you to the uncle , i mean to a representative of the uncle .

Cheers Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

I like the side profile and in particular the eye. Good detail, but as I said before, I would even the colour in the BKG in parts to a more uniform one. The combo is heavy, but good results based on the techs, but the real test would be IQ at around a 16x20+ print. I've never really pushed the MKIV unlike the 1DX, however I think there is something not right with Nancy's based on her image from the 7D, they are polls apart unless her PP has changed.

Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Steve i know it is "only" for web , but looking at the raw file i feel it could work as a large print .It is not Iso 400/800 so keeping this in mind i am not afraid pushing the camera far beyond this and get more than acceptable results.Secret is to work more sensitive during capture (ETTR) and even more PP.
BTW what is 16x20+ ? Inch?

Andreas