California Harbor Seals
Along California's San Mateo County coast one can observe Harbor Seals in their natural habitat very close to shore (this is Bean-Hollow State Beach, ~50 miles south of San Francisco). I shot this group of marine mammals and sea gulls into a setting sun from about 150-200 feet away.
Beach access is fairly easy. One can pull off of Highway 1 (a.k.a. Pacific Coast Highway) and park on the shoulder, it's wide enough. From there it's a short trek to the bluff (200-300 feet). And then down one of the many shallow trails to the shore.
There are plenty of tide pools to explore too.
On my next visit I'll shoot in the morning with the sun to my back to avoid the harsh lighting conditions. And bring a longer lens.
Technical details:
* Olympus E-510
* Zuiko 40-150mm f3.5/4.5 kit lens w/circular polarizer
Post processing
* rawtherapee v2.3 to adjust exposure, brightness, contrast, WB, shadow brightening, highlight recovery, etc., and to convert the RAW file to TIFF.
* gimp v2.4.3 to rescale, crop, USM, apply a border and save to JPEG.
* exiftool to copy the EXIF tags from the RAW file back into the JPEG.
* kflickr to upload the JPEG to flickr.com.
* Linux Kubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibson.
* Dell e1405 laptop with the 1.6Ghz Intel CoreDuo and 1GB RAM.
California Harbor Seals
Along California's San Mateo County coast one can observe Harbor Seals in their natural habitat very close to shore (this is Bean-Hollow State Beach, ~50 miles south of San Francisco). I shot this group of marine mammals and sea gulls into a setting sun from about 150-200 feet away.
Beach access is fairly easy. One can pull off of Highway 1 (a.k.a. Pacific Coast Highway) and park on the shoulder, it's wide enough. From there it's a short trek to the bluff (200-300 feet). And then down one of the many shallow trails to the shore.
There are plenty of tide pools to explore too.
On my next visit I'll shoot in the morning with the sun to my back to avoid the harsh lighting conditions. And bring a longer lens.
Technical details:
* Olympus E-510
* Zuiko 40-150mm f3.5/4.5 kit lens w/circular polarizer
Post processing
* rawtherapee v2.3 to adjust exposure, brightness, contrast, WB, shadow brightening, highlight recovery, etc., and to convert the RAW file to TIFF.
* gimp v2.4.3 to rescale, crop, USM, apply a border and save to JPEG.
* exiftool to copy the EXIF tags from the RAW file back into the JPEG.
* kflickr to upload the JPEG to flickr.com.
* Linux Kubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibson.
* Dell e1405 laptop with the 1.6Ghz Intel CoreDuo and 1GB RAM.