I spend a lot of time kayaking and getting close to wildlife. Last weekend the water had turned flat calm and the haunting cries of the loons resonated through my bones. Their songs echoed in all directions and for about thirty minutes I enjoyed the concert. Once the loons figured out I wasn't a threat they swam over to visit.
nikon d300
nikon 300mm f4 AFS
TC-14E 11
iso 800
1/320s
f-14
You have an interesting group here Daniel, I like the various head angles and the great eye contact. I also like your use of a non-standard crop ratio here. You might want to crop a little off the bottom and top to emphasize the effect and and remove a little dead space. I would suggest that you rotate this image CCW as the loons seem to be swimming up a a tilted lake. You have some nice reflections. Did you have any particular reason for shooting at f/14 (to get the entire group in focus perhaps)? If you can get away with it, I would suggest that you bring down your aperture some, allowing you to shoot at higher speeds and have cleaner backgrounds. Overall, nice composition here.
Sounds like a great experience. They can be quite curious at times, esp. the juvis.
Good input from Joel.
Agree about the rotation. The whites are overexposed on the breasts. I use Nikons , and usually am at least 1/2 stop, often more less than the meter indicates, depending on the light. I have used all the metering patterns on the D300, and generally end up with center weighted for loons if in fairly close.
I also agree about a more dramatic pano crop, to eliminate some of the bright highlights in the water below.
The crop is an improvement, I would have left just a bit more on the left. Also, as Randy suggested it would be worth revisiting the original file to see if more detail can be recovered from the white breasts. Two of the three bird's breast are now quite gray.
Nice grouping and capture.
loons
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote