Nikon D300 w/Nikkor f/4.5-5.6 80-400mm VR @ 400mm, hand held.
ISO 640, 1/1000 sec @ f/9
Charles Darwin is said to have called the marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands "hideous". But I found this one, the image of which was captured recently on Isla Espanola, to be beautiful.
"Hideous", hardly?
On my monitor the area around the mouth and top of the head does not look very sharp despite the smallish aperture. Does anybody know what the inner ring in the eye is.
Marine iguanas are fairly large animals, measuring up to about 5 feet in length. The 400 mm lens used, focused as it was at about 10 feet from the iguana, has a fairly limited depth of field even when stopped down to f/9. Because the focus point was the animal's eye, it is not surprising that parts not in the plane of the eye are not as sharp as those in the plane.
I like the over the shoulder look of the subject. Midday light is harsh but handled well in this image. A few distracting bright spots in the BG but overall well done.....
Good image here, but a bit more direct eye contact would have made it even better (not that getting that is always possible). I think you handled the mid-day light very well (can't always get things during the golden hours can we - especially when out hiking on a remote island).
I haven't looked at the raw image, but I had the jpeg on my computer (Yes, we're related). I enlarged and looked at the eye and some of what is reflected in the eye is the surf of the ocean which produces the diagonal white area. I suspect that the iris of the eye is reflecting the light to produce the circle indicating the edge of the pupil. As you know, flash is not allowed in the Galapagos, so this is natural light producing this unusual eye circle.
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