It was a nice morning.
Almost over slept this morning. Got up, but I was a bit slow getting enough coffee in me after yesterday’s fantastic game. I wanted to get some landscape shots before the sunrise – I like an hour to a half hour before for photography and observing. Those times often offer the best color. Running a bit late, I caught the sun coming up over the ocean, always a blessing, but I missed all the good color from earlier.
The light was still great so I changed plans. I switched out the wide-angle for the Tamron 150-600mm and went looking for wildlife. I was hoping to get lucky, maybe see some raptors or a fox. Drove around a bit, nothing. Had another thought and this is what I found this morning. (Phoca vitulina)
All shots are cropped considerably, even at 600mm, the harbor seals were pretty far away. Because the low sun was hitting them just right, I set exposure compensation at -1.0, to help prevent any overexposure of the seal’s light fur. (Seal fur, btw, belongs on a seal.) I was shooting in aperture priority, not manual mode, since I was kind of parked in the middle of the road, with a park ranger behind me tooting his horn for me to get back in my car.
All shots: ISO 500, F9.0, 1/1250th sec., 600mm. The ISO was bumped up to increase shutter speed, as I was hand holding 600mm. Aperture was 9.0, because this lens is very sharp there, and figured I needed some depth of field.
There are some better places to find seals on Long Island and I will try to hit that in another post. Seals are federally protected marine mammals. Please respect them by staying at least 50 yards away. If your presence alters their behavior, you are too close.
Thanks for looking!
Michael Witten 