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Brought To You By V263
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Brought To You By V263

by Clinton Bauder

Gallery: WildlifePosted July 15, 201217,581 views2 comments
I suppose this could be in the man and nature gallery due to the unfortunate tags and brand on the animal on the right but I decided to put it here. Hope that's OK. It does bring to mind Howard Hall's awesome rant about animal tagging: http://www.howardhall.com/stories/taggin.html

Anyway, aside from the tagged animal I'm fairly happy with this shot. It was taken off of Soberanes Point on the Big Sur Coast at a spot called Lobos Rocks which features a large colony of California Sea Lions Zalophus californianus. You need calm conditions to dive here and we had them today. The best place to get sea lion shots is in the extreme shallows up in the whitewater near the rocks and it's a tough place to shoot. Lots of movement, lots of bubbles to stick on your dome port, too many subjects and very high-contrast scenery. I took about 300 really bad pictures from this dive and 3 or 4 that were worth keeping like this one. It isn't a perfect composition but with this many subjects it's almost impossible to get them all to pose at the same time! :biggrin: Loads of fun though, even if you aren't getting shots as there are few wild animals more truly playful that Sea Lions.

Nikon D200, Tokina 10-17 FE Zoom at 17mm, Subal Housing, 2x Sea and Sea YS 350 strobes at half power. ISO 320, f/8 1/250th. Fixed focus at around 3 feet from the front of the dome.

Comments

2 comments
Comment posted by Luke Ormand on July 15, 2012 at 3:14 PM
Very interesting shot - I like how it shows the dynamics of this species and you got some nice look at the eyes

- Luke
Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments
Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on July 16, 2012 at 6:41 AM
Hi Clinton, a bit of a chaotic scene here, but I quite like it. It is a bit dark though and I wonder if this wouldn't be stronger if brightened up a bit. Getting rid of the V263 text on the seals body would be easy if you wanted to. :wink:
Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments