Northern Royal Albatross

[Peregrine Craig Nash]

I went on a Albatross Watch at Kaikoura NZ today it had to be one of the best birding experiences I have ever had.
It was very bright and so had to underexpose heavily. 1d2n Sigma 10-20 at 16mm iso 200 f7.1 1/2500sec.
I know there is an airline trail :-( but Im afraid I was holding the camera inches off the water so didnt concentrate on background.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Great comp and low angle, love it! ¡It is like you gave us the feeling of being an Albatros for a while, great exposure and stunnig detail. congratulations!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very cool image. I like the angle and details. If it is not full frame, I would add a bit space top and right and try to get more details in the shadows and remove the specular highlights behind the bird.

[Simon Bennett]

Interesting perspective, you could only get at Kaikoura. I think the bird is a Wandering Albatross (Gibson's). Royal Albatross have a distinctive black cutting edge to the bill and at this age are snowy white, they do not have the fine waved dark black feather tips that this bird shows.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Stunning composition and excellent exposure. The detail is wonderful and the low angle just puts it over for me. Thanks for sharing.

[Doug Brown]

Love the impressively low angle. I haven't done any bird photography at 16mm of focal length, but it sure does help with the DOF! I would add a little space to the top and bottom of the frame and remove the specular highlights in the water.

[Tony Whitehead]

Looks like you had a lovely day for it, Craig.Well done with the low angle wide angle lens. I agree with Simon's ID comments. The vapour trail should be an easy edit to remove. A tiny puff of fill flash would have been useful to minimise contrast and open up the shadow on the neck

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

THe perspective is what makes this so good. These birds are so big! I would like to see a little more head turn to get a better look at its bill. I do love this image though! :)

[Jasper Doest]

So next time you go out birding, bring a waterproof housing ;-) It would have been an awesome capture if you could have taken this at an even lower angle, bringing more bird above the horizon. Now the horizon is cutting-off the head, which is a bit distracting. Experience-wise this must have been thrilling!

[adrian dancy]

Superb shot. It must have been a great experience to have photographed this and even better for the shot to have turned out so well.