Common Seal

[William Dickson]

Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/8
1/1000
ISO 1000

Another from my hometown...Common Seal, 35 limpets and thousands of barnacles Yes, I really liked the 'perch' on this one. All on a red sandstone rock with seaweed. I wasn't sure about the OOF rock in the foreground. It looks as though the Seal's left eye is pointing out the OOF rock to me There is a halo around the Seal, this is light passing through the fur.

Will

[Bruce Elkman]

With effectively a 700mm f/8 lens setting the DOF at 12 meters camera to subject distance is only 50mm from the point of focus to the rear. Focus on the encrusted rock and those parts of the seal that are more than 50mm further back will be out of focus. Going to f/11 or even f/16 would have helped. With your existing image I would bet that upping the contrast in post would improve the overall clarity and I adjust contrast before doing any sharpening.

[John Mack]

Love the look on this seal. He is like what is going on over there? Very nice perch really makes this one. Nice one.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like it Will, the rocks make for a beautiful platform and the seal is well rendered, I do think it might be good to take the blues down a few pegs on the coat. The top of the image is relatively bright, I would have been tempted to put a grad. filter on that to reduce the contrast somewhat. A small burn on the lower rock also adds a little presence to the overall presentation.

[Jay Shah]

Will really love the expression -- so human like. Yes DOF on these primes can be unbelievably narrow as Bruce pointed out. But to me, it does not seem an issue as the parts of the image where it matters seem sharp to me. Good one.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Will,

Glad to see you back with another Seal image! Lovely capture, nothing "common" about this fellow and I think he is so cute, the expression on its face is priceless:)

Bruce is right, more DoF would have made a difference. And I completely agree with Jon's suggestions above. Still a beautiful image with lots to look at, love the "perch" as well as those patterns on the seal's fur, this is well composed, subject well positioned within the frame.

Hope you'll be back with more...

Kind regards,

[Morkel Erasmus]

I like that expression, one eye half closed gazing at us.
I think it can do with a hint more sharpening and perhaps exposure optimisation (bringing in the max and min pointers in levels).

[William Dickson]

Thanks so much for the comments guys, much appreciated

Will

[Dumay de Boulle]

Nice shot, clean BG. The pose is great and the rock its sitting on is ideal to get the nice clean shot.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Will I might try RoT's and crop some off the foot so 2/3rds sky, 1/3 rock.

TFS
Steve