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Humpback
No tusks or horns here! I've been away for a few days: we have a bush block down the south coast of New South Wales near Eden which is a great whale-watching spot. These humpback whales (that get to about 40 tonnes in weight) migrate down the east and west coast of Australia each spring on their way to feeding grounds in Antarctica. They return in autumn. We went out on a whale watching boat on Monday. The migration is winding down so we didn't see a lot. No spectacular shots of whales breaching either - even though we saw a couple do so. Otherwise, these aren't easy to photograph but I did like this particular shot. Probably a 'marmite' shot as Steve might say, or 'vegemite' as we Australians would say. Full width frame with some taken off the top. Nothing left at the bottom to bring in, or on the left either but I was aiming for a tight crop here.
Thanks for taking a look and any comments you may have.
Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/3200, f7.1, ISO 1000. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, Sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements. Lighting adjustments to the whale fluke where shadows lifted and midtone contrast boosted. Strong NR to background with Neat Image and small amount to the fluke. Sharpened (sharpness function: remove Gaussian blur, radius = 0.4 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.
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Lifetime Member
Hi Glenn - It is fun to photograph the humpbacks and nice to see them in brighter conditions. It seems most of the times I have photographed them it's usually in gray conditions. I like the water running off and the deep blues. I do wish you had the whole fluke and hadn't clipped it on the left. Going tight was fine, I just want the whole fluke. You've handled the whites of the surf well.
TFS,
Rachel
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Hi Glen I like the idea here and the sharpness and colours look good. Agree with Rachel on the fluke. TFS. The water running off and the nice bright light add to this cool image.
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Macro and Flora Moderator
I like it Glenn, I am a little bugged by the end of the fluke too.
I suspect some would have a better idea but I tried a duplicate layer, went back to Filter Camera Raw Filter and brushed the whale with a little negative luminosity in the blues.
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Thank you Rachel, Sanjeev and Jon. I agree having the whole fluke would be good but my reflexes and skill let me down here. A fair swell and being forced to wedge myself against the side of the boat added to the things I had to worry about. I still liked the look of this in spite of its imperfection.
Jon, it seem you thought the fluke had too much blue: I'm guessing you wanted the white bits to look white? I did look at that when I processed this and decided to leave it for better or worse. I'm not always convinced that rendering colour in a way that a subject would be seen in perfect white light with no reflected colours is always the best approach and I leaned that way on this one.
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Hi Glenn -- Nice to see some more variety. Lovely blue colours and the water sliding from the fluke. Wished it was completely in the frame . A nice image .
TFS !
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Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator
Dear Glenn,
Very interesting capture. Great techs and nice PP work, love the pano and those colours are fantastic.
Forgive my ignorance, I had to Google "fluke" as I did not know what it meant. Now I can also complain about it
Now seriously, I really think you should go back there again and seek more opportunities - I would love to see one of those whales lunging out of those deep blue waters!
Enjoyed this Glenn, thank you for sharing. You have some wonderful images in your folders.
Kind regards,