Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/7.1
1/1000
ISO 1250
On Sunday, I spent 5 hours with the seals in my hometown. I don't know why I have never done this before(prob too interested in Bird Photography), but I loved the experience. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is a Common Seal, which in my part of the world are less common, than the Grey Seal. There are about a dozen of them perched on the rocks, not far from the shore, and, on an incoming tide, they move to higher rocks in the area, which gives great opportunity to capture them in various positions, which I did, over 1000 frames. This is the first frame I processed, and any advice on photographing these beautiful creatures would be very much appreciated. For this one, I processed in PS CC2018. I changed the whites, and blacks, raised the shadows slightly. Applied USM to the seal, and slightly cropped for comp.
Hi Will - Great to see you posting in Wildlife. Andreas is our resident seal expert so I will leave it to him to confirm the species and give you pointers for in the field. This looks good though. I like the comp and placement in frame. You were there but I'm seeing some red in the rocks and to a lesser extent on the seal. Looking forward to seeing more of your seal images (and other wildlife too).
Will, great work here... like your bird photography. Detail, colour and tone all look excellent to me. Nice pose and raised flipper adds to this shot for me. I'm less sure about composition though and would play around with it a bit more. Maybe a bit off the bottom to make it more pano? Maybe some off the right? Still a lovely frame though.
Hi Will nice to see you go for fur instead of feathers ...always good to do something different .
It is a Common or Harbor Seal ....
A typical pose nicely captured by you , love the soft washed rocks that this guy has chosen to rest on.
Detail color and tone are looking basically ok from my side , the detail in the fur cannot be much finer i think as the seal does look like he is not long on the dry land , does look wet . Then the fur is not looking fine at all . Just one smooth surface , apart from the hairs that one can see around the throat .
I might lift the shadows very slightly and would drop the blue in the seal itself .
I do agree about choosing a more pano orientated format .
Hi Will, good to see you venturing into this pond, lets see more...
To me will it looks a bit under exposed and you didn't use the histogram??? In addition It appears you have applied NR and in the rock strata killed any detail which I think has also happened in the subject and why Andreas has also questioned the overall detail of the capture. Again, playing safe on the ISO front Will, unless 'rock steady' you should really be around 1/2000SS. The LH flipper is a bit awkward, and removing it does look odd.
Just be mindful of the light BKG next time Will and be more confident with the Histogram.
Thanks for the comments, much appreciated and learned from. Rachel, the red on the rocks, is a natural colour, its red sandstone. You are an expert on seals Andreas. Hi Steve, thanks for that, I never applied any NR. Must keep an eye, on the histogram more often. Good that the 300 f/4 is away.
Really wonderful to see you posting here in Wildlife. A nice surprise I just cannot believe you have been ignoring such beautiful subjects until now, they are right on your doorstep!
I like the colours here and setting, especially those lovely rocks. Subject is very cute, is it a youngster or an adult?
In terms of framing I would suggest moving the subject a bit off-centre. I also think a higher SS would have contributed to finer detail, especially when attaching a converter to a 500mm lens.
Beautiful scene and I love the sky behind the seal, nice POV too, well seen and captured my friend - let us see some more please?
Common Seal
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. Hi Steve, thanks for that, I never applied any NR. Must keep an eye, on the histogram more often. Good that the 300 f/4 is away.
I just cannot believe you have been ignoring such beautiful subjects until now, they are right on your doorstep! 
