Sea Spray
by Cam Held
Another shot from my recent puffin photographing trip to Machias Seal Island off the Coast of Northern Maine / New Brunswick. As I mentioned in my last post, there were over 6,000 puffins, 3,000 razorbills, as well as common murres and arctic terns on the island, as well as two groups of seals- both harbor seals and atlantic grey seals.
Most of the seals paid us no attention, but this one seal kept his (or her) eye on us for the entire time. Focus and composition were tough in the rocking boat on 10+ foot swells with a handheld 500mm, so it took a bunch of shots to get what I wanted. I would love comments and critiques! Thanks!
-Cam
Oh, and help with a better title would be much appreciated!
Tech Specs:
Canon EOS 7D
Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS
ISO 160
f/5
1/2000 sec
70% of original (cropped out a seal's butt on the right)
Comments
3 commentsTough shooting situation for sure - I've been in the same boat (well...not literally) when photographing sea lions on the west coast and it's a challenge. I like the exposure - good job on holding the highlights in the water and the dark-on-dark detail in the seaweed. As mentioned above, image is a tad soft, but hardly surprising given the situation. I like the 3 main horizontal bands and how they work together. In terms of suggestions - I'm wondering if the "supporting case" (the other seals) are simply too bright - if this were mine I'd experiment with selectively reducing the brightness of all the other seals by about a half stop. I think they'd be a little less distracting then and that the main subject would pop out a little more.
Just a thought...
Cheers...and thanks for sharing this...
Brad