Big Boy

Gallery: WildlifePosted March 31, 2014145 views4 comments

Big Boy was sunning himself on the bank. Air temp was mid-70's. Not sure on water temp, but not too high right now as it's been chilly in the nights/mornings.
I got a few of him on the bank. One eye was obscured by grass in most of them. He moved pretty slowly and naturally, given his size, didn't seem worried about us. He slowly entered the water, came towards us at an angle, then slowly submerged when about 30' away. We didn't stick around long after that.
Largest gator I've seen in the wild. I'd guess 14' and around 800lbs. He was WIDE.

D7000, Nikon 70-300mm VR @ 300mm, f/7.1, ISO 800. 1/1250s. Think distance was about 75'.

I could have lowered ISO and shutter speed. I was in M mode and was set for some BIF shots. Saw him and was pretty excited, forgot some things a pro wouldn't. My main thoughts were catching him with good exposure and focus before he submerged. Late afternoon sun was to his right front. Wish I could have more light on his left eye. I attempted to brighten a bit but didn't want to add noise.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Alan LaFaver on March 31, 2014 at 12:00 PM

Original image. Slightly cropped and processed in NX2.

Registered on February 28, 2014, 18 Posts, 147 Comments

Comment posted by Rick Cloran on March 31, 2014 at 3:43 PM

Alan, I like the original. Everything looked pretty good there. You had plenty of detail and the tones on the gator's back looked fine. The only thing I saw was that it felt a little tipped to the right (cw) and so needed a small CCW rotation to level it. That was one big boy at 14 feet!!

Registered on April 6, 2004, 119 Posts, 1989 Comments

Comment posted by Rebecka on March 31, 2014 at 5:14 PM

A 14' gator - are you kidding me?!

That's insane. Were you in a boat photographing him? I imagine if you were going for BIF shots you didn't have a polarizing filter on your lens? I think that would have helped here, although some people like a reflective water, depending on the shot. I think I would prefer this one with a little less reflection. Otherwise - the angle is GREAT! It looks like you were just about eye-level with the beast, and any lower and the foreground vegetation might have obscured him. The color/white balance looks good, very natural. I might play around with increasing the blacks a *tiny* bit. For example, if you use LR, take it from a 5 to a 6... just to see what that would do, but I don't know what software you use. Also, I would definitely selectively desaturate the green foliage in the foreground. It would be less distracting from godzilla. Or you could just crop some from the bottom, maybe? Or a little of both. These are little things you could do, but your image is really, really nice as posted.

Registered on February 5, 2009, 170 Posts, 924 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on April 1, 2014 at 1:18 PM

Hi Alan,

Even without any good "frame of reference" objects around this guy he definitely looks BIG! Must have been a rather large experience!

I like the low angle and the subtle curve of the body. I noticed the off-level water line as well, so you might want to tweak that a little. To me it looks like the focus is behind the head (even behind the eye) a little - to me the back region looks sharper than the head (which is a bit unfortunate). While I don't disagree with Rebecka's comment about the blacks, I'm actually wondering if a global reduction in exposure by 1/3 to 1/2 of a stop might strengthen this shot - just a thought...

Cheers...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments