Feather Merchant

[Arthur Morris]

This Northern Gannet was photographed at the Bonaventure Island, Quebec rookery while co-leading a Gannets Galore workshop with Monsieur Chris Dodds. Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO lens handheld with the EOS-40D. ISO 320. Evaluative metering +1 stop off the sky: 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6. Fill flash with Better Beamer at -2 stops.

Chris taught all of us that a single gannet may make many, many passes before landing at the nest. Thus, if you track a bird carrying nesting material as it turns out over the Gulf of St. Lawrence you can often have several chances to make a good flight image before it lands.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Love it! Pose, details, and exposure are outstanding, the feather is such a huge plus here, the only thing is that I see in some areas of the BG some compression noise. Congratulations as the shot is indeed terrific! Have a nice day!

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Beautiful composition !! Love the flight pose in this capture and the slight head turn and of course the feather makes this for me. Really lovely work Artie and I appreciate the info on the flight images. Did not know that the gannets make several passes before going to the nest. Thanks for sharing this info with us.

[Joanna Trescott]

This is beautiful. Catching the gannet with feather really tells a story. I love the little bit of yellow on the head.

[Markus Jais]

wonderful flight shot. great light and wing pose. I love the feather.

It's good to see the gannet carrying a feather. On my last trip to Helgoland, I saw many of them carrying human stuff (like parts of fishing nets). Later they can get entangled and I saw three dead gannets hanging in the colony attached to fishing nets or similar stuff.

Markus

[Arthur Morris]

Ramon said, "...the only thing is that I see in some areas of the BG some compression noise."


Hey Ramon, I am doing this for 25 years and I have never heard of background compression noise.. What is it? Where do you see it? What does it look like?

Does anyone else see it?

I just blew the image up to 300% and to 600% and the only thing that I see in the BKGR is a thin HORZ cloud just to our left of the bird's primaries.

I am always looking to learn...

[Fernando Cerra]

The image is beautiful, the background looks clean, I think the cloud in this case looks a bit distracting.

[Arthur Morris]

The image is beautiful, the background looks clean, I think the cloud in this case looks a bit distracting.

I agree Fenrnando. Thanks for pointing that out. When I processed the image, I did not even see that cloud...

[Chris Dodds]

Monsieur Morris,

Lovely, peaceful image with a great title. Simple in design, yet very pleasing and elegant. I don't see any "compression noise" (whatever that is - perhaps he means jpeg artifacts - which I don't see either). Both versions work for me.

Thanks again, buddy & can't wait to get back there.

[Glenn Bartley]

Neat image. The feather definitely adds to it.

[Linda Robbins]

The feather puts this already wonderful flight shot over the top.

Please stop Artie. I am trying to resist getting a 400 DO, but flight shots like this are pushing me inevitably toward bankrupcy....

[Ramon M. Casares]

Ramon said, "...the only thing is that I see in some areas of the BG some compression noise."


Hey Ramon, I am doing this for 25 years and I have never heard of background compression noise.. What is it? Where do you see it? What does it look like?

Does anyone else see it?

I just blew the image up to 300% and to 600% and the only thing that I see in the BKGR is a thin HORZ cloud just to our left of the bird's primaries.

I am always looking to learn...

I see it for what it counts... :confused: I have more than 10 years as a professional digital retoucher and even that doesn't make me flawless :) , maybe my monitor is not well or something, but sometimes when you compress an image to jpg or for web use, that compression creates some "broken" pixels look specially in very soft and clean areas... I am sorry I don't know how to explain it correctly as my english is limited :o
Try changing you monitor claibration, not to correct it but to at least, that way you might see what "noise" I am talking about.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Monsieur Morris,

Lovely, peaceful image with a great title. Simple in design, yet very pleasing and elegant. I don't see any "compression noise" (whatever that is - perhaps he means jpeg artifacts - which I don't see either). Both versions work for me.

Thanks again, buddy & can't wait to get back there.

That is what I meant Chris, thanks for translating my terrible english :) , and I have to insist, in my monitor I see it... although in my laptop I don't.. so it is probably my desktop monitor