In the Field

Harbor Seal - Subtleties. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 25, 2023.

I've probably said it too many times on this website, but the truth is I never tire of photographing Harbor Seals. Between their unusual (for a mammal!) fusiform body shape, their cat-like whiskers, expressive eyes, and highly variable coats...well...I just think they're great subjects. This particular seal had an interesting brown/grey coat and was determined to stay perched on a submerged log as the tidal current was doing its best to push it off!

To date my favourite lens for photographing Harbor Seals is my Z 400mm f2.8S prime super-telephoto lens. This is largely because of its great combination of exceptional sharpness and super-soft and smooth out-of-focus zones, especially when shot wide open. This particular image was captured with my Z 400mm f2.8S with its built-in TC engaged - so at 560mm. While I won't make the claim that the built-in TC has no impact at all on image sharpness (in my view the lens IS slightly sharper when shot without the TC engaged), I will say the lens is still very sharp when its TC is engaged, including when the lens is shot wide open (such as this image was)!

One final comment on the technical side of this image capture - I captured this image using a Nikon Z 9 using a custom wide-area AF area mode and with subject detection on. But...rather than using Animal subject detection mode, I intentionally used Birds subject detection. Now...before someone says "What a dummy...doesn't he know a seal is NOT a bird?"...and for reasons I currently can't explain...I have found empirically that Birds subject detection mode almost always works better on marine mammals than does Animal mode. I've also found that Birds mode almost always works better on terrestrial mammals than does Animal mode when those mammals are very small in the viewfinder (i.e., are in the distance). Again, I can't explain why this is so, but it is!

Here's a larger version (4800 pixel) of this unique Harbor Seal:

• Harbor Seal - Subtleties: Download 4800 pixel image (JPEG: 3.0 MB)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

1. These images - in all resolutions - are protected by copyright. I'm fine with personal uses of them (including use as desktop backgrounds or screensavers on your own computer), but unauthorized commercial use of the image is prohibited by law. Thanks in advance for respecting my copyright!

2. Like all photographs on this website, these images were captured following the strict ethical guidelines described in The Wildlife FIRST! Principles of Photographer Conduct. I encourage all wildlife photographers to always put the welfare of their subjects above the value of their photographs.

3. This image was captured during my Into the Great Bear Rainforest Exploratory Photo Adventure in the early autumn of 2023. Each year I offer trips into two different parts of the Great Bear Rainforest as well as two tours into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary (to photograph grizzlies, of course!). Details about these trips can be found on the Photo Tours page of this website.

Behind the Camera

Harbor Seal - Subtleties. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 25, 2023.

High Efficiency* Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 450.

Nikon Z 9 paired with Z Nikkor 400mm f2.8S at 560mm (TC-engaged). Hand-held from floating Zodiac. VR on in Sport mode. Custom Wide-area AF (13x3) with subject detection on Birds mode.

1/1000s @ f4; -1.0 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Harbor Seal - Subtleties. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 25, 2023.

Initial noise reduction and capture sharpening on the .nef (raw) file using the DeepPRIME XD algorithm of DXO PhotoLab 7.5 Elite (using the appropriate lens/camera optical module).

Subsequent adjustments to the adjusted linear DNG file (exported from PhotoLab 7) and conversion to 16-bit TIFF file (and JPEG files for web use) - including all global and selective adjustments - made using Phase One's Capture One Pro 23. In the case of this image only a single global adjustment was made - a reduction in highlights. Selective local adjustments performed using Capture One Pro's layers and masking tools. In this case numerous small adjustments and tweaks were made on 3 separate layers, with most of the tweaks being associated with "exposure balancing" and contrast adjustments (such as adjustments to clarity, highlights, shadows, etc.).

Photoshop modifications were limited to the insertion of the watermark and/or text.

Conservation

Harbor Seal - Subtleties. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. September 25, 2023.

Species Status in Canada*: Most Harbour Seal populations in Canada are not listed as Threatened or Endangered. The Lac des Loups Marins landlocked population of Quebec (Ungave Peninsula) currently listed as Endangered (most recent assessment update - November 2007).

The Harbour Seal (Phoca vitulina) is found on both the eastern and western coasts of North America. They tend not to make long migrations and in many areas they are present year-round. When foraging Harbour Seals normally dive to between 30 and 100 metres in depth and stay below the surface for 5 to 6 minutes. On occasion they have been known to dive to depths of over 450 metres and have stay submerged for almost 30 minutes. Harbour Seals have a diverse diet, including cephalopod, crustacceans and a variety of fish such as herring, eulachon, pollock, and salmon.

Historically bounty programs were used in both Canada and the USA to reduce populations of Harbour Seals. In more recent times seals have become protected over much of North America and some populations have rebounded strongly (it is estimated that over 150,000 seals now occupy the coast of British Columbia). There is a land-locked and freshwater sub-species of the Harbour Seal found on the Ungava Peninsula of northern Quebec. This population is now down to an estimated 100 individuals and is listed as Endangered by COSEWIC.

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.