Grey Seals on Helgoland

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi folks being a bit quiet from my side, i am busy taking images on Helgoland .It is an Island lying in the North Sea.
Good location for some species like Gannets , Seals and various other birds. Island is very small all locations can be reached on foot , or you need a short ferry ride to the dune to get to the seals.
Weather is not very stable at the moment during my stay , three seasons in one hour possible..........
This morning ...........pouring rain, hoping for the afternoon.

These two guys were fighting over an hour with breaks , it was somehow serious because they fought until the were bleeding .Unusual for this time of the year, normally they fight hard in winter.i wished the sneaking seal on LHS was not there.........

Canon EOS 1Dx
EF 500 IS L
Tripod

F 8 ; 1/1000 ; and yes ISO 20000
shot in manual and + 1,3 expo compensation, so really overexposed

Processed in PhotoNinja and PS CC ; small amount of luminance NR to the whole image.
If colors or other stuff is not right as normally , working from laptop so not used to this .very different from working at my big calibrated screen at home.

Comments and thoughts are very welcome

Cheers Andreas

[Neil Burton]

Looks pretty good, nice tones and no clipping. Would like to get to Helgoland one day.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andreas - Looks pretty good for ISO 20,000! I agree with you about the other seal nudging in from the left but that's nature. You might consider getting rid of the seaweed (?) coming in from the llc. Nice low pov, detail looks good and not too much noise for such a high ISO. I hope the weather gets better for you.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andreas, like you, working on the laptop, so can really comment only echo the above comments. My only thought would be to desaturate the sea colour????

ISO20,000

TFS
Steve

PS Just battened down everything, heavy rain for the next day or so....

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Neil,Rachel and Steve for your comments.
Just an extra explanation for the high Iso.Shot was taken between 6 and 7 pm , it was heavy overcast, so SS was getting very low.But i needed the high SS , so i went for manual exposure and Auto Iso, to compensate the Noise i overexposed the images , then recover the HL in post.
As far as i can say it worked , at least looking on my Macbook.
Just came back from the Dune, got soaking wet in early afternoon, followed by very nice sunshine and in the end got wet again.I have seen a such dramatic sky , i have not seen for a long time. Sadly no short lens with me .

Cheers Andreas

[Morkel Erasmus]

Quality looks amazing at ISO-20000!! Especially in the black fur...
Nice behaviour and low angle, Andreas, and agree about that LHS seal!

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Andreas,

I viewed this image and read your explanations on PP work with great interest tonight. The seals' fur looks like velvet and the IQ overall is unbelievable for ISO 20000. Either your camera's performance is amazing, or your PP skills... I think both...

Love the scene you have captured and the little chap sneaking in from the left does not other me that much. Regarding sea colour, I don't know - I thought about it long and hard and decided I quite like it, although I haven't been to the sea so long, I cannot remember what it looks like

You won't see any of these creatures in the Kalahari (LOL)! Not even sea lions, just lion-lions!!! By the way, hope you booked your October holiday...we are already working out the menus!

Anyway, this afternoon myself and Andre dashed to the Game Reserve (it is only 10 minutes' away) and had some lovely sightings, I shot at max ISO and now busy downloading images, wondering what they look like and how to process them if quality acceptable. My subjects are also black (and have horns), my guess is they might appear rather bluish in the RAW so I shall see how I am going to fix that. Therefore I am reading every bit of information you gave regarding your PP work here-thank you, much appreciated!

Have a great evening,