Fly Away

Seal Rocks state park is one of my favorite coastal locations for

photography, but it's far more. Several of the rocks are also federally

protected breeding grounds for a number of seabirds. The visitor can

often see dozens, if not hundreds taking flight above, with pelicans,

gulls, cormorants the most prominent among them. In this sunrise

image, I have made an attempt to show them admist their environment,

soaring above the crashing waves.

 

I wanted to capture the wave action as well as the birds in flight in a way

that I felt best described the scene to the viewer. My thinking was that a

shutter speed around 1/5 second to catch the exploding waves and a

1/200 shutter for the birds would work best, so I combined two

exposures, taken just a moment or two apart, one for the sky and birds,

the other for everything else. The exposures were made with the lens at

16mm and ISO's of 50 and 800, apertures around f/16 and f/7.1.

beatiful shot, well done

Superb shot.Thanks for sharing the phographic details. You must have merged the images? Do you? Have u taken the images in RAW format?

Regards,Susmit

This is just beautiful, Marc!

The slow movement of the crashing waves and the tack sharp birds, is superbly achieved. It takes you to do those things and it's a great inspiration for us to try this.

 

The colours in the clouds are very nicely vivid and they are reflecting onto the water near the rocks and in the crashing wave.

 

The definition and the lighting on the foreground rocks is perfect enhancing all the details.

 

This seems to be a beautiful place for photographers and birds :)

 

Thank you and take care!

Looks great. Well done.

Very well thought out and executed. The birds take it to the next level. One thought the 16mm has some distortion happening, the ocean horizon appears to be slanted. Otherwise it's outstanding once again. Ry

Hi Marc. Awesome 7/7 as usual. I really appreciate you sharing all the technical details. Thank you. Regards.

This is a very special piece. Your description of the the thought process and execution is very helpful indeed. My only nit is the horizon curve. Thank you much.

very nice indeed - personally I don´t mind the curved horizon, somehow it works well with the birds here, gives it a sort of "airy" feeling

 

Thanks for the detailed description Marc, as always very inspiring! Just makes me wonna grab my camera and head for the coast.

Your technique worked great and the result is lovely. Really nice color.

Gorgeous scene, beautifully captured, as always, Marc. Interesting technique you used to capture the image. I've never even thought about switching ISO to get the correct shadow/highlight exposures. I'll have to give that a go should the need arise. Thanks for sharing this lovely image, and the technical details used to capture the image. it has been a long time since I've been down along that portion of the west coast. I may have to make time once again to venture down into your neighborhood.

All the best,

Neil

Great capture, Marc. There's so much to look at from the crashing wave to the birds to the brilliantly colored sky. Congrats on yet another fine image.

Hi Marc:

As usual, spectacular image. I like the ocean curve and the dual exposure is a great way to capture all facets of this image. Congratulations, as always. Keep shooting.

Dave