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Female Yearling Elephant Seal
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| As part of my theory that man has lost the clue about how dangerous wild animals are on his road to progress, I and anyone one else that sees them run for the first time, is simply amazed by their speed. They dont have any legs per say. All they have are their flippers. They weigh several thousands pounds usually so initial anticipation of their speed and ability to run down humans is quite low. I will tell you underestimating anything wild is a killer. They can easily traverse the sand faster than any man can sprint. Its incredible how fast they can go. Not only that, theyre silent. They can do this without making a sound. Wow& That was my first thought watching a full-grown male chase off a slightly smaller and equally quick younger male. They can cruise when they want to. Hence one of the problems the beaches protectors have when people get on the dunes and beaches walk up to the seals. If he wants to, a full-grown elephant sealand all 5,000 of his poundscan take you. As I said, I dont mind the Docents being a bit anal about the beaches. How about a little bit about shooting these guys? Okay, the first thing Ill say is its a bit more difficult than you think. Even though on initial view, they look averaged toned and therefore dont need any exposure compensation, thats not totally correct. Their fur color is average but in bright sunlight, their fur is very reflective and can easily be overexposed. I discovered this during my first trip. I had exposed using compensation techniques Id developed over the years only to find many images with highlights significantly overexposed. I was very surprised. I didnt see the highly reflective nature of their fur and didnt properly adjust. I only discovered this while editing the days images in the comfort of my camper. The beauty of a Nikon D1h is seeing the result almost immediately and being able to make adjustments on the fly. If I didnt have that capability and depended on film, I wouldve been sorely disappointed when my images finally returned from the processor. As a rule with elephant seals, I subtract one to 2/3d stops of a reflected meter exposure whenever the sun is beating on their fur. If the sky is overcast, I dont apply that compensation. Its almost like shooting bright whites but it only applies when the sun is out. Early or late shots dont have to apply this compensation. You could also use an incident reading and get away pulling only 1/3 a stop. Its a confusing situation thats easily controlled if youre shooting digital. On initial inspection youre probably wondering why apply any compensation if you could fix it with post processing. Unfortunately, their fur is so reflective the dynamic range of my cameras digital medium is sorely not up for the task. You have to do something at the risk of exceeding what your camera can do. The unfortunate thing is in your attempt to control the highlights may cause your shadows to bee too blocked and dark. If you havent guessed by now, in photography everything is a compromise. Elephant seals arent the only things that may interest a Nature Photographer. Western Gulls are quite common looking for handouts or remains from any of the pups that might have expired. Another Western Gull trait is their ability to fore shadow impending births. If theyre circling overhead of an incredibly fat female, a birth is about to happen. While the birds arent nocturnal, that doesnt stop the birthing. It just happens, the gulls are incredibly busy first thing in the morning cleaning things up from the preceding night. Since youre shooting from a slight cliff from the beach, the slight look down perspective is quite nice for in-flight shots. The best light is first thing in the morning. Piedras Blanca is predominately a northwest/southeast beach. That means at sunset, youre practically shooting in the sundefinitely not nice light. The beach doesnt get light until about an hour after sunrise. By then the sun is a full strength and you have to worry about blowing the highlights as I mentioned before. Dont worry about it if the sun hasnt hit the beach yet. I could go on at length on more of the natural history of the area. Or, I could give you a few more pointers for shooting the elephant seals. I prefer to leave you something to explore yourselves. If youre really curious about how I shoot there, check out my gallery page. I have an entire gallery devoted the elephant seals. Have fun Tom Hill 8 March 2002 |
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Elephant Seal Pup Squish
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