Bull Island Seals Dublin Photo shoot

Bull Island is located just south of Howth, around a 10 min drive from Howth harbor. It is a nature reserve, so make sure to follow the rules listed there. In order to find the seals you need to park on the northern part of the Island (Second bridge if you are coming from Dublin)

Park your car in the sand parking lot, and get ready for a 20-30 min walk. Here is a quick map on where you will find the seals my location is marked with the purple marker.

For Olympus RAW file usage with GPS I recently discovered GeoSetter, great tool that can work with the .ORF files, write the .xmp card or directly into the file to accommodate GPS data. Highly recommended.

Funny enough this map shows the exact GPS location where I was located, but bear in mind that the tide changes, so that area could be covered with water any other day, but I have been there 3 times and the seals are always located on the northernmost corner of the island, but not all the time laying on the sand, which was the shot I was looking for. After a couple of tries, here is what I managed to get prior to this day..just a few head shots.

I believe that in order to get shots from the seals outside of the water there must be a reasonable amount of sun and a low tide, this last time I went was around 9AM, so I dont think the hour in the day matters that much.

My Gear:

Olympus E3

Olympus E30

Zuiko 50-200mm 2.8

Zuiko Teleconverter 2X EC-20

Hoya Polarizer Filters

Lowepro FastPack 250

Wind resistant pants and jacket

Wellies

After a good 30 minute walk,  and depending on the tide you will find the seals at the northeast corner, approach very slowly and be very careful of the sand. I misjudged some weed and sand banks and went right in all the way to my knees covered with weed,sand and I am sure smell liked shit.  Once you are 50-75 meters away from the seals lay down on the sand, take your gear out and start approaching them by dragging yourself trough the sand, if the seals see something taller or something similar to a human shape they will dive right into the water.

Take a few shots and get closer, make the seals comfortable, and then get closer again, if some of them get scared and dive into the water stop immediately, stay still for a few minutes and move again. I saw a group of 15-20 seals but as I got closer and the tide rose few and few seals remained.

Use your bag as a bean bag and start shooting, I used Shutter and Aperture Priority Mode, low ISO (100) and a polarizer filter. I tried some shots with the tele-converter but I thought I was sacrificing too much sharpness, so decided to get closer and also crop some of the images to close-in the seals.

Being gray seals, the metering system will struggle with the light measuring of both the harsh light reflecting on the sea and the dark features on the seals faces, so compensated with EV+1 to bring some details on the face, or try and fix on post processing.

Puppies are very curious so they are the ones that will be the most active and will get closer to you, but be careful in never getting between the puppy and the mom, as they will feel threatened. Also as some seals go in the water be aware always of where they are, they can come out behind you and you dont want to be too close, a seal bite can be very nasty and have lots of bacteria in their mouths that can cause a big infection.

I lost a very good shot of a fight between 2 adult seals. If you see a seal approaching another one, and their heads are close to each other,  one of them will open its mouth that’s the beggining, put your camera on burst mode and do some manual focusing as you will see a fight that will only last for a few seconds.

Always be mindful of the tide, if you think that the waves are getting closer and closer you are right. Usually the seals are on a spot higher than the tide, that means that if you are not careful you will end up on a little sand island surrounded by water that is rising, believe me I was stuck once and had to walk with water up to my knees hauling my gear, hence the wellies. Once you get home, clean your equipment right away, there will be sand between the extension part of your lenses and all around the buttons, even though the E-3 is weather sealed, clean this with an air brush as you dont want corrosion. For your bag, wait for the sand to dry and then shake all the sand off, there will be a lot of sand accumulated on the back area of the backpack that you wont see but once it dries it will come off rather easily. If you want to see the whole set of pictures visit my site at flickr here..

del.icio.us Tags: seals,Dublin,photo,photography,Bull Island,Nature,Olympus,E-30,E-3. sea lions,wildlife,Howth,Ireland

Tips on <Wildlife in B&W>

Is not so hard to choose when a scene might be better suited for B&W or a color composition. Scenes where animals have colorful characteristics, or the entire scene has very saturated colors are better snapped in color, on the other hand, moody skies, harsh sunlight or interesting textures might be better suited for B&W

Its easy to select when to leave color	Textures and abstracts can make interesting B&W shots

When the weather takes a turn for the “worse”, low light, moody cloudy skies are usually the best opportunities to go for B&W. Remember you are trying to convey a mood, not any specific details of the animal or subject you are shooting.

Because of their color and textures, elephants, rhinos, gorillas and chimpanzees make for great portraits in B&W

Another trip to remember is that the more contrast the better so don't be afraid to shoot on harsh conditions which will accentuate this contrast.

Visit my pictures at http://www.flickr.com/a207001392

del.icio.us Tags: animals,photography,B&W,Black and White,tips,tutorial

Tips on...<Horse Racing>

First thing to do is get yourself a race card.Apart from listing the horses and the riders it will also give you a map of the horse track and usually will display which areas of the race track are open to the public. Choose at least a couple of positions

Locate the parade ring, winners enclosure and weighing rooms. These all provide great opportunities for shots of jockeys with or without the horses, the trainers, owners and members of the public.

There is a lot of waiting between races, usually it can be as much as 30 mins within each race so bring some food and a book

AS the horses canter down the center to start its a good time to take solo shots of horse and rider, as opposed to groups of galloping horses. This is the time to try panning, zooming and slow shutter speeds. Flash isn't allowed because it will scare the horses so slow sync flash is out of the question. Try putting some tape on your flash, just in case you have a mishap with the settings and you get booted out

One way is to use shutter speed mode to freeze the action and doe some panning, another one is to set it up on Aperture Priority do matrix metering and adjust the ISO to allow a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the movement at your chosen aperture.

Shutter speeds of 1/30 sec are slow enough to blur the action for artistic effects

Using AF on continuous keeps the front runner sharp and barriers can help you frame the composition.

A classic shot is to wait for the penultimate race, rush to the winning line to capture the horses as they past the post.

Visit my pictures at http://www.flickr.com/a207001392

 

del.icio.us Tags: photo,tips,horse,racing

Tips on..<Animals in Action>

Have patience

Eye contact

• Good eye contact helps the viewer to make a connection with the subject, adding impact
• Whenever possible try to get at same eye level of your subject
• Make slow deliverate movements to ensure you are not perceived as a threat and wait until you see catchlights in the eyes

Panning

• Convey the feeling of speed as your subject runs or flies by your sreen
• It will take practive, start by a shutter speed of 1/30, 1/125 seconds)
• Prefocus on the sport where the creature will pass in front of you and fire the shutter.
• Your settings will need tweaking according to the lighting conditions speed of the animal.

Relieve stress

• Make sure you give the animal time to relax, such as dogs. In case of dogs, let them be dogs before you start shooting them, play around with them
• Once you begin if it begins yawning lor laying down he is showing signs pf stress and just needs to be a dog again.

The right lens

• Go for the fastest lense you can aford
• Image Stabilization either on lense or camera can make a big difference
• In some situations a monopod can help achieve sharp shoots
• If you can justify the cost, a prime lense offers unrivalledmimage quality and sharpness

Be invisible

• For cerain species that are hard to capture, weate quite clothes in natural subdued colors, steer clear of perfurmed soaps and lay off afteshave the day of the shot
• Use bushes and trees for cover or invest in scrim netting to drape over you and your camera, disguising your outline

Add water

• Any body of water can make great aditions to your photographers acting as a foreground interest or prodiving a reflective surface to add another dimension to your subject
• Calm water often works best for reflections of wildlife.

Aperture

• A fast aperture may be necessary in dim conditions in order to maintain image sharpness, but shooting with your lense wide open generates a shallow DOF, recommended is at an f/8 to allow plenty of light to nter the lense as well as to create enough separation Boost your ISO slightly so u can still shoot with a fast shutter speed.

The right light

• The midday sun flattens fitures and reduces contrast so is better to stay until the sun hangs lower.
• If you position yourself correctly, you should find that this creates dramatic, high contrast lighting, with deep shadows cast across the landscape.
• Capture your subject in full sun against a shadowy background and you have a recipe for a moody spectacular show

Freeze the Action

• Some actions can look great when frozen completely but be aware that this mean you lose some of the drama. This is a good approach when trying to capture a decisive moment. Such as the apex of a horse jump, a cat jumpng filling the frame, try 1/1000 sec shutter speed

Flash

• Sometimes a burst of fill-flash can make a real difference to your shot, lifting your subject out of the shadows or simply adding a glint to their eyes.
• You are not using the flash to illuminate your subject entirely, merely to fill in some of the harsher shadows and inject some life into your photo, so dont over do it. Always be aware of your subjects disposition; if they are nervous its not worth the risk of causing them stress - find another subject.

Filters

• A soft focus filter can work really well for some subjects, particularly when ytou want to add a warm glow or soft nostalgic feel to the image. This filter doesnt cut the amount of light entering the lens, so you can use it without affecting your exposure settings. It also works really well with light subjhectsm bathed in sunlight.
• An ND grad is essential for balancing compositions with dark subjects agaunst bright backgrounds and a ND filter helps to cut the amount of light entering your lens allowing you to extend your exposure time without overexposing the image

Blur the action

• Sometiomes a more abstract approach to photographing your moving subject can yield a very pleasing shot. Mount your camera up on a tripod set the shutter speed of 1/8, 1/2 secs, predocus on a point that your subject will pass and fire the sutter just as they sweep past your lense withou trying to track them, the result should be a colorful blur of movement across the frame, capturing the speed and drama of the animals movement. You can vary this technique by panning the camera slightly to achieve an overall blurred effect, but still retain some of the subject's distinguishin feature.

Autofocusing

• For some subjects select a single central focusing point, but this doesnt always work. The solution is to select several focus points around the center so even if part of a wing crosses that rectangle of points the AF mechanism can lock onto it. This can be a very useful way to accurately tracking the fast moving birds by using continuos auto focus.

Birds in flight

• Its best to set to either Aperture, or Shutter Speed, set your ISO according to the light conditions.
• Use a shutter of around 1/500 seconds to freeze the action but a little bit slower would show a very interesting movement in the exposure
• Ensure you are using burst mode on your camera

Tips On..<Animals at Zoo>

• Bring a long telephoto lense, and a tripod. If you have Stabilization on the camera or lense could let u get away from the tripod
• Remember that if you bring a tripod turn off Stabilization
• There are 3 types of shots
  • Wide angle shots that show the animal with the environment
  • An animal portrait that fills the frame with the animal's head
  • And a single animal aspect, like a paw
• Try to get animals showing movement, are more interesting than the animal doing nothing
• Also, try and find a position where it doesnt give away that you are on a zoo, such as fences, people, posts, etc
• Getting ready of cage wires
  • Select Aperture priority in combination with a wide aperture
  • Move as close to the fence as u can
  • If any parts of the wire show up in a way of "fogging" increase the contrast in post production and this should fix the problem
• Shooting trough glass
  • Eliminate reflection if you are using flash angle tis at 45 degrees to minimize the amount of light that will bounce back at you
  • Take the lens hood off if u are not using flash and shoot with the front of the lense pressed against the glass, reflections should disappear, make sure to have your UV filter on to protect the lense
• Focus on the eyes of the animal, if the animal is interested on something and following with its eyes you can get a great show of its eyes when is targeting something
• Talk to zookepers, they will give you great information o when an animal is most likely to be moving or in action.
• Understand animal behavior it will give you a heads start on movements that the animal will make. (i.e walking around a cage, drinking water, etc)

Get close to the animals.. even the scary ones:

Try to make your shot as close to wildlife as possible, avoiding posts, fences, and wire