Although a VERY common bird, I could not resist the beautiful light and willing model. This gull let me approach very closely (I was at 400mm zoom), and it looked like an attractive subject.
1/320 sec @ f/5.6
-1 EV
no flash
ISO 400
EF 100-400mm IS
Canon 40D
Post Processing: Using Lightroom, I added some vibrance, a slight bit of WB temp, and upped the exposure by 1.3 stops. Obviously that means I shouldn't have been at -1 EV when shooting. Not sure what happened there - maybe I switched subjects and forgot to check by exposure compensation? Luckily I was able to save it in PP (yay digital!)
I cropped slightly (to center the eye), resized and sharpened for the web. All comments greatly appreciated!
You've got good sharpness. I like the eye. I do find the bird a little tight in the frame, and would add some canvas primarily on the right. I would also add a sliver of canvas on the left. Have you thought about a horizontal crop?
Hank, I really like Gull portraits. The lighting and the details look nice. I agree w/ Doug, it's a bit tight in the frame esp. the right.
BTW- I loved your poem in Friends and Family, very well done.:)
Thanks Denise! I appreciate the compliment very much....
And thanks Doug and Julie for the suggestions - I will definitely reframe and repost (hopefully this evening when I'm back at my home machine). I didn't think of cropping to a full head shot, but I'll give that a try as well.
Beautiful lighting and excellent exposure, detail and eye contact, I would add canvas on the left and more canvas on the right as it appears very tight. Well captured and many thanks for sharing.
First, more area to the left and right of the gull's head:
And here's a tighter horizontal crop of just the head. I gave this one a little bit of noise reduction (in lightroom). I also sharpened the eye just a little bit.
Last edited by Hank Christensen; 03-27-2010 at 05:10 PM.
I think either repost works well and takes care of the suggestions about the first post.
I prefer the first of the reposts, but of course the decision is yours.