Donna Nook Seals *13 pics*

[Silverpenguin]

Right, so today was my first ever visit to Donna Nook to do seal pictures. Wow what an amazing but LONG day!!!

I was up at 3am (annoying didn't get to sleep till after 130am either ) to be on the road for 4am as we wanted to arrive at the beach for sunrise at 8am and its a 250 mile drive from where I live!!

We got there and set ourselves up in our warm weather gear (its is COLD out there without the right gear) and headed out towards the sand flats. I'd say its about a half a mile walk maybe, over slippery, sinky sludgey sand which was quite akward when carrying heavy gear! The sun came up over the horizon as we made our way out and it was a beautiful site to see the sun, sea and almost perectly clear sky as we made our way towards the banks. Once there you have a MASSIVE area to cover if you wish - I'd say a couple of miles and then some! There are seals everywhere so you just have to pick one and snap away. We photographed from 8am till midday and then headed back to the car, which was very hard going as we were knackered by this point and the sludgey sand and wind made it very slow going.

I've had a quick look through my shots and I think these are pretty much my favourites, not really done much in the way of PP as I am KNACKERED from driving the 500 mile round trip!!

All done with the 200-400, which I discovered early on today has developed very very bad back focus!! So I had to try and compensate all day and missed a lot of shots because of it! I'm not too pleased and taking it down to Nikon HQ tomorrow!

First some pups:

This one kept yawning, bless...lol

And this one sums up how I feel now after the longest day ever...

 

[Amber24]

Wow, those are wonderful! I think you got some really good facial expressions. The first shot is one you just have to go *awwww*.

 

[hovis]

Great shots - I have fond memories of Donna Nook - that have nothing to do with seals, but everything to do with the RAF.. Live bombing range.

 

[lostprophet]

Great shots - I have fond memories of Donna Nook - that have nothing to do with seals, but everything to do with the RAF.. Live bombing range.

I plan on going there next year for the planes and the seals

STUNNING shots:thumbup:

 

[midget patrol]

Great, great, great shots. I'm very impressed.

What exactly is "bad back focus?"

You capture some wonderful expressions, body positions, and features. They're so cute!

 

[tpe]

Great stuff. I would have loved to see the penultimate one with a little more on the RHS so it wasnt cropped away. You caught the cuteness very well. In the penultimate one th elighting and focus are great, and the capture wonderful, if it had had just that little more on the RHS i would have had to have removed one from my wall to make room for it.

tim

 

[Silverpenguin]

Thanks all

Tim, I cropped that one slightly, there is actually more canvas to and right hand side in the full frame

Danny, back focus is where the lens focuses behind the area you have choosen to focus on (even though through the view finder all appear ok). So I would focus on a seal and take a shot and the seal would be slightly soft but the sand behind it would be razor sharp. So I had to keep trying to pick a point just in front of the seals to focus on. Very frustrating.

 

[Arch]

very nice shots.... well worth the effort to get there imo... you should be please with this set :thumbup:

 

[e999sam]

Great shots. We went a couple of years ago it’s a beautiful place.
After seeing your images I think we might take a trip out over Christmas

 

[LaFoto]

These are absolutely great and the experience must have been breathtaking! You managed your back-focus problem brilliantly. They all make me say "Awww" and "Awww" over again, they are so cute. I understand why driving a whole of 500 miles for this has knocked you out, but wasn't it exhilarating as well? The weather looks like it was lovely, too. Cold, indeed, but you got some nice light and colours ... not to also mention the cool expressions and gestures that you captured. Wow. (If only I knew whereabout this Donna Nooks IS ... :scratch: ).

 

[Big Mike]

Wonderful shots...and only made better because of the effort you put in to get them. I really love how you are shooting down on their level...and not down onto them. Great work, thanks for sharing.

 

[Antarctican]

What a great bunch of shots!!! I see elephant seals, but are there other types as well? (one looks like a leopard seal, but I don't know if they're in the northern hemisphere?)

 

[ShootHoops]

Nice shots. Some of these had me giggling.

 

[Silverpenguin]

Thanks for the nice comments all

 

[Raymond J Barlow]

very well done SP! I would bet that was quite a drive!