This Flightless Cormorant was photographed from a moving panga off Isabela Island in the Galapagos in May. Almost full-frame. I sort of like the symbolism of the large rock blocking his 'flight path', but I suspect some would prefer it not be there. (Could be evicted easily by going with a square crop.) The wings of these guys must really take a beating from 'flying' underwater. Even though they can't fly, we often saw them from our boat at a considerable distance off-shore.
D90 | 80-400 VR @ 185mm | ISO 1000 | 1/2000s @ f/7.1 | -0.3 EV | HH
great compostion, bill. i really like it! but it looks like you were a little underexposed and tried to bring up the light? muddied out the darks a little. with that -0.3 compensation, i think it hurt you. probably should have been a little in the positive with that dark bird. i think it's totally salvageable with a little more work. i think a little bit of blocked up blacks would be better than the muddy colors.
Thanks for looking, Harold. I don't think the problem was exposure. Here is a jpeg copied straight from the RAW Capture file, showing the histogram which looks OK to me with the -0.3 (ignoring the quality of my jpeg copy). Perhaps I could have boosted the contrast?
Hi Bill - could just be my eyes - but looks like a halo around the upper part of the bird.
Exposure looks good to my eyes. Blacks look a little noisy perhaps - dont mind the rock on the LHS too much!
Like the pose and some tattered feathers there.
Nice and timely photo for me.....just watched a 3 hour show this afternoon on National Geographic called "Galapagos". It showed among other things some footage of these guys underwater...they are pretty fast.
Hi Bill Exposure in camera not bad but you could have pushed the histogram more to the right? Looks like you got a third over there? With dark subjects as main try going all the way to the right and even blowing a couple would not be a problem I got my lesson big time doing the rodeo images, any image that was not as just described I just trashed ..too hard to work on !!!
Like the pose very much and don't mind the rock that much, illustrates your point !!! ... would also have tried one without it !!!!
I'm a little slow getting back to this, but in case anyone is still tuned in, I've tried another version, going back to the original RAW file. I got rid of the big rock, and also some oof rocks; cropped to square; ran the new Topaz DeNoise 5 selectively in places; boosted the contrast; and a little cleanup. Looking closely at the bird, his body is almost more like fur than feathers, and does look a little 'muddied' in reality. Curious to know if anyone thinks this is an improvement.
No-flight Zone
