Leaping Dolphin
Late afternoon in November on Pine Island Sound, FL. As we were coming home on our boat, my wife saw this lone dolphin a quarter mile away leaping for all he was worth. We approached slowly and had a blast watching this beautiful critter play.
ISO 400, 98mm, 0ev, f/4 1/5000. Handheld. Straightened horizon, added a little bit of magenta to the sky in Aperture.
Canon 7D EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM +1.4x
All comments very welcome. Thanks,
Alex
Wow! That must have been really exciting to watch!
It is a pretty impressive action photo for a wild dolphin.
Composition looks really good. Nice focus and good dof, although from looking at settings you might have added some.
Looks like a bit of halo around dolphin and if mine, I might take a bit off the top and lighten the area around the eye a bit.
A lovely way to record the adventure.
Dave
Nicely done, James! The first two things I noticed were the eye area and the tail - wanted to see just a bit more detail there if possible. You might try a shadow/highlight adjustment and see what you can bring out without introducing too much noise.
You caught the action very well...good water drops really show the freeze of the frame nicely. The blues in the sky and water are realistic as well. I'd take just a sliver off the top where that partial line of clouds hit the frame line.
James,
Your techs are perfect. Great exposure and details.
Regarding composition, objective of this image is to snow the dolphin leaping from water. With the original comp and subject placement with rules of 3rd is fine. Bit of -ve space around is kind of not keeping me locked on the subject. I would go for a tighter crop of the dolphin with little more ocean at the bottom. Nice curved arc kind of locks viewer attention. here is my version. Let me know what you think.
Wow; this must have been close; these are very hard shots to make; great you caught him in jump mode:)
prefer the recropped image
Dave and Julie--thanks for the kind words and the suggestions-I like your recommendations and will take them.
Sid--thanks for the kudos and taking the time to show me the benefit of your version--yours is a much better!
Richard--thank you as well--shooting dolphin is one of my most favorite past times but you do go through a few frames to capture a nice image.
Alex
Alex,Originally Posted by James Alexander
My pleasure.
Love to see some sunset dolphins if you got some.
-Sid
Excellent capture. I like Sids crop to center but don't think you need to add any to the bottom.
I love all the water drops.
Peter
Thank you, Peter.
I very much appreciate it.
Alex
Peter thats the exact reason whey I wanted to have little more space at the bottom. More water splash kind of hints more action.
-Sid
Posting Permissions
