Hi folks another quick Seal portrait for this month theme before it is over ..... well the theme
Image of this Elephant Seal pup was taken on South Georgia on a landing site called " Right Whale Bay " .
Canon EOS 1D MK IV
Ef 500 IS L
Tripod and Gitzo Fluid Head
F 4 ; Iso 800 ; 1/400 sec ; man exp . well today i would have chosen another setting , but you can imagine how the light situation was when you look at the settings .
Processed with DPP 4 and PS CC , cropped from all sides slightly , sadly i have cut off his/her left flipper due to the use of the 500 , so i cropped in even more in post better no flipper than a half one .
Thanks for looking and leaving a comment to my last thread .
Hi Andreas, I think you did well considering the environment & kit.
I personally think the crop, framing is fine, as it's the face that draws you in, especially with those 'ink pool' eyes, but just my take. Good call on going tighter. I also like that the majority is almost B/W with the background of Mum (?) in colour, it works well and has a nice balance/contrast. However, if you had the 1DX then I think increasing the ISO to gain more DoF & even some SS would have helped, primarily just to get than lovely nose sharp and to join those, oh so cute, eyes.
Hi Andreas -- very nice portrait ! beautiful eyes , colors and tones looks good too . agree with steve on more dof here and i think mk IV can be stretched to iso 2000 , but u already said your settings would have been different lately .
BTW wat is that thing coiled up in front of the Seal ?
TFS !
Thanks Steve and Haseeb for your feedback , much appreciated.
Steve - yes it is mum in the BG . And for sure the 1Dx would have been better for the techs , but i could have gone higher with the Iso on the MK IV with todays NR technique that i am able to achieve both me and the available software .
I have seen a close up of yours from your recent Svalbard trip ...... so there you also have been not that far away from the subject . But agree in general it is way easier to do that stuff on South Georgia / Donna / Helgoland rather than on /around Svalbard as far as my single Svalbard experience goes , but you can show me personally how it is up there , just make the expedition come true and you can show me all the secrets regarding shooting techs from the nose to the eyes .
Haseeb - the curled stuff in the FG is some kind of seaweed .
Hi Andreas - there's cuteness factor at play here too. Nice detail and exp of the blacks. I think I see your reflection in the eye. I might come in a little more on the rhs to make it more apparent that it is purposeful.
I know only too well the decisions one makes with the 500 re. framing & cropping and feel you've done the best here Andreas by going in closer, love the details on the face and overall cuteness factor.