On the fly

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi folks, permanent rain stopped me again this afternoon. After 3 hours i gave up soaking wet, but Steve it is just my skin.........
This youngster was curious and approached me on the run, finally he was sniffing on my setup.Sadly could not take any images of it, did not want to open my backpack and get out the other cam with wide angle, due to the rain fall.

Hope you like it.

EOS 1Dx
Ef 200 - 400 IS L at 560 mm
Tripod

F 8 / Iso 3200 / 1/500 sec

Cropped for comp , 70 % of FF

Processed in PhotoNinja and PS CC

Comments and critique very welcome

Cheers Andreas

[Don Railton]

Hi Andreas, love the detail, exposure and the pose you caught here... Very well done.! Dof looks perfect. Surprising that there is no marks in the sand at the contact point (yet) so he must be flying...

Don


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[Loi Nguyen]

Andreas, nice low angle view, good details and perfect exposure. I'd like to suggest taking a sliver off the top to emphasize the low angle view. Loi


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[Nancy Bell]

I always like a head-on view as clearly the animal and the photographer are engaged, and the image puts the viewer also in that engagement. Having captured the animal with his chest off the ground and only the tips of the flippers on the sand really show the forward motion frozen in a moment of time. Perfect DOF with the near sand and bkgd sand nicely blurred and nice sharp details in-between. Lovely dark liquid eyes.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andreas - great eye contact and inquisitive look from the seal. Having it lifted off the sand just takes this up a notch. Techs all look good. Nice one.

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Err...you forgot to add your name to the image!

That's my only crit, this is a stunner, perfectly exposed and beautifully presented, lovely pose and natural colours-congratulations Andreas!

Kind regards,

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andreas, nice one, glad you didn't shrink in size getting wet!!

I like this as it lunges forward, although as you are on a slope, I'm not sure if it needs a slight CW rotation? If it was me, I might just blend the BKG or at least lose the yellow blob on the RHS in LR, but not keen on the crop, seems a little awkward, WDYT? Good detail & depth in the subject and ISO3200, nice to see you pushing things, be interesting to see a print at A3 (16 x 20) for IQ. Glad the trip was fruitful, even if the weather wasn't. You can't help but go AHHH with those black 'dinner plate' eyes.

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks folks for your thoughts and comments.

Steve i leveled the frame on the eyes, so for me it is fine. The crop……… as soon as i uploaded the image i was thinking what you think……….. . But i deleted everything accidentally ……… not the RAW though.
Yes i pushed things up to 20.000 ISO .

Thanks Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Steve i leveled the frame on the eyes, so for me it is fine.

Yes, I saw that, but I still feel that rotating the front FG area that has a visible diagonal line would help address the issue, and a simple fix.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Steve, but i do not see an issue.I keep it as is , sorry Maestro i do not follow your thought on rotation.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Very nice Andreas! I too noticed the slope/diagonal and considered a rotation, but then saw the eyes would not be aligned anymore so fine for me as is too...

[edwardselfe]

I'm fine with the levelling and the eyes being level. I'm also not wild about the crop - might lose some off the top and bottom I think. This is almost 5x4 which I don't find flattering for many subjects and this is such a great shot that I would think again about the crop. Just me though.
Ed