Although my 70-200mm lens in a bit heavy, there are several reasons why I love it. One is the opportunity to get a close shot of nature with minimum disruption to my wild subjects, in this case, the seals near Blakeney Point. There are two types of seals in the area, this first photo is of a Grey Seal:
ISO 1250 195mm f/16 1/500 sec
Here is the original shot.
ISO 1250 195mm f/16 1/500 sec
This next photo is of the Common Seal:
ISO 1250 170mm f/16 1/640sec
Here is the original of that shot:
ISO 1250 170mm f/16 1/640sec
These photos were taken from a boat and my lens was set at 195mm and 170mm for the photos. In addition to having a long lens another trick to making the seals look closer than they were is to crop the images. In the case of the first photo, the crop is fairly small. I didn’t want to lose the shore or too much of the water as I thought they were important parts of the photo. I was more aggressive with the second photo in a couple of ways. The first is the crop, I’ve removed the blood-streaked seal completely. Secondly, I have changed the tone of the photo completely. While I warmed the first photo a bit, for this second one I wanted to change it completely, make it look like I had taken the shot in completely different light conditions. It’s a different look, but you still can tell how well these seals blend with their surroundings.
What do you think of my photos and their edits? Do you have a favorite? Feel free to leave a comment below.
A variation of that first image made it into my Instagram feed:
Picfair: Grey Seal and Common Seal
Added to Travel With Intent: Afar and Thursday Special: Marine.
Cheers!
Photography Journal Blog 