We have a growing colony of Laysan Albatross out on Ka'ena Point at the northwest end of O'ahu that is now up to about 50 breeding pairs. They have no fear of humans and are very easy to approach. I hiked out there about a month ago and was very careful to approach a pair and not disturb them - taking an hour to close to within portrait range and stopping every time they showed signs of being disturbed, then not moving closer until they were once again comfortable with my presence. The irony came when an entire team of DLNR biologists walked straight up to them, picked them up, banded them, weighed them, checked their nesting site for eggs, set them down, and walked away to repeat it all with the next pair of birds.:eek:
Anyway, I know the light angle is not optimal and perhaps the background is a bit too busy, but am wondering how best to crop this - have I left enough on the left and top?
f/11
1/1000s
ISO 400
-1/3 stop from EV
1DsMkII
600mm f/4 IS
1.4X TC II
Nice portrait here Christopher and fairly good exposure on the whites although the forehead looks warm. I might clone out the grass shadow (or OOF grass?) on the bird just where it's throat meets the bottom of the frame. There's also a little something where the top of the bill meets the head.
Thanks Stephen. I hadn't noticed the shadow from the grass until you mentioned it. The thing on his bill shows up on a number of other photos too. I guess it's a bit of fluff that should be removed.
As far as the warm forehead - the pixels aren't actually blown (well within the limits of the histogram) and on my (calibrated) monitor I can still see detail there. That said, I've always wondered if it is better to go in and try to reduce the brightness manually for the conversion to sRGB/web, or just leave it alone. I find it very difficult to balance the brightness between the white forehead and the black eye surround.
Laysan Albatross
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