Real Mouth Full

[Steve Large]

Hi,
Here is a picture of a Stellar Sea Lion during the herring run. Took this shot yesterday at Neck Point in Nanaimo B.C.

Stats: Canon 50D, 500mm +1.4x, 800 ISO,1/400sec at F/6.3

Thanks for your comments,

Steve

[Steve Canuel]

Like the head angle, eye contact, and the fish heading down the gullet. Looks to need a touch of NR. I might also give it a little contrast and sharpening on the eye. I would imagine it's a little difficult to time them coming up with fish?

[Charles Glatzer]

Hey Steve,

Good timing and good catch for the both of you. Good sharpness considering the focal length and shutter speed.

Best,

Chas

[Ken Watkins]

This is something you would rarely see let alone capture. I agree with running a little NR on BG and some selective sharpening on the head. I tried my ideas what do you think?

[Marc Mol]

Great timing here Steve with good eye contact, droplets and bonus fish!
Ken's repost suits well.
TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Good comp, and well timed to capture the exit from the water. His catch an added bonus.

[Rachel Hollander]

Nice comp and capture. Ken's repost is an improvement particularly on sharpness.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Large]

This is something you would rarely see let alone capture. I agree with running a little NR on BG and some selective sharpening on the head. I tried my ideas what do you think?

Hi Ken,
Thanks for your work on this. I do see a bit of an improvement. Unfortunately it seems to have given the noise a bit of a boost as well. Perhaps giving up a bit of DOF for a faster shutter speed and lower ISO might have given better results? At any rate, I have always had a bit of trouble with noise at 800 ISO on the 50D. Sometimes I can filter it out successfully but on this particular photo it didn't work out too well.

Steve

[Steve Large]

Hey Steve,

Good timing and good catch for the both of you. Good sharpness considering the focal length and shutter speed.

Best,

Chas

Hi Chas,
Thanks for the kind words. As you know, we only get a shot at this for about 2-4 days out of the year when the herring are running here in Nanaimo. It was quite a feeding frenzie down at Neck Point that day.

Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

late to the party here Steve - nice moment and I like the POV here

agree on you getting good sharpness for the techs posted. light was just not your friend here, eh?
Ken's repost appears to have more noise, but I would guess this is also due to him posting a recompressed JPG image, resulting in loss of IQ

[Harshad Barve]

Very nice indeed and re-post works
TFS

[Ken Watkins]

Hi Ken,
Thanks for your work on this. I do see a bit of an improvement. Unfortunately it seems to have given the noise a bit of a boost as well. Perhaps giving up a bit of DOF for a faster shutter speed and lower ISO might have given better results? At any rate, I have always had a bit of trouble with noise at 800 ISO on the 50D. Sometimes I can filter it out successfully but on this particular photo it didn't work out too well.

Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thanks, reposting from a JPEG is never as good as working from the original as I have found to my own cost in the past. Personally I do not find the noise too bad at all.