Helgoland photoworkshop

[Rob de Jonge]

Hayo and I did visit Helgoland for 3 days ”shooting” gannets most of  the time and sea lions on Düne. Helgoland and Düne are 2 small islands about 50km from the coast of Germany in the North Sea. The weather was mostly sunny so the light was a bit harsh.
I came home with thousands of images. Most flight images of the gannets. There was a remarkable high percentage of sharp images. The modern AF-system of Nikon is really state of the art. It was a lot of work to reduce nearly 3000 photos .  Lots are sharp, but also more of the same. There are still 800 photos left. Enough to show you some.


Rob de Jonge

[Hayo Baan]

Hi Rob,

Thank you for your first (?) series of images from Helgoland. Really awesome photography

I usually have some comments/points of improvement, but to be honest I can't really find any
Perhaps only for your last photo. Here I would have preferred some more room on the top and the right. Oh, and if you're busy anyway, get rid of the distracting white spot (another bird) in the lower left corner as well. Regardless, you have shot a very fine long shutterspeed image, very well done!

I myself am just about ready with selecting and editing my images and will upload some here shortly.
Once that's done I can start working on the images from Bavaria. Looking forward to that as I finally got images of a bear in a tree

As you say, coupled with the proper settings and right technique, modern cameras are indeed very good at AF. The only times I found AF to be (still) problematic, was with flight shots using a super long tele (e.g., 600mm with and without TC), and then especially in front of the red stone of the cliff; here I only got a couple of perfectly sharp images…

[Rob de Jonge]

Thank you Hayo for your kind words. You are right about the last picture. At the presentation  for the NFG-members I have removed the disturbing white spot.
Here is my next upload.

[Hayo Baan]

Nice!

Landing Gannet, I like the interaction with the Gannets on the cliff. Not sure if cropping tighter would make a stronger composition, but you should definitely try.

Sex on the cliff. Here I would most definitely crop tighter; there now is a lot of unfilled space.

The Gannet in front of the red cliff looks pretty sharp and that is a real achievement; the AF system really didn't seem to like this setting… The shadow so close is a nice touch, for me the Gannets didn't want to cooperate as well

Weedy beak, the poses these Gannets take when landing, simply amazing. The dry patches in the water in the background make for a good environmental shot, they may also distract a little bit (not sure I really mind though!).

Thanks for posting some more