Bufflehead Landing

[Steve Large]

Hi Guys,
Here is an image that I got the other day of a Bufflehead Duck landing in one of our local river estuaries. He was just putting on the brakes and using his feet to steer before landing.
Hope you like it.
Stats: EOS -1 D Mark4, 600mm IS2, ISO800, F/4 at 1/1600sec.

Steve

[Shawn Zierman]

Really sweet flight pose. I enjoy those large extended feet. Given how small this species is, and fast flyers!, and exposure challenges... the size of the subject in the frame with as much detail and sharpness as you achieved is plenty impressive.

[Henry Domke]

Wonderful shot! I wonder if you could bring out a bit more feather detail in the black areas of the back and the whites on the back of the head.

The Highlights and Shadows sliders in Lightroom 5 can often find detail that I thought was missing.

[Bill Dix]

Great flight shot. Love the feet and water drops. I, too, wonder if you could tweak just a little more sharpness and detail out of it. I don't know if you did anything to the BG, or are so inclined, but I might tone down the white patches at least around the head and neck.

[Steve Large]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the feedback. Guess I went a little to hard on the "auto-contrast" in Photoshop. Here is the remake.

Steve

[Arthur Morris]

Incredible pose; a truly great flight image with the incredible dorsal view, the trailing feet, and the splayed tail. The original is miles better than the repost which is way overdone... An all water BKGR would have put this one way over the top. I am betting that the boxy crop is from too slow a pan with the active AF sensor near the tail or the feet.... Can you please post the full frame capture?

[christopher galeski]

Great capture,nice flight pose,the first post is the one for me.TFS.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent dorsal view and dynamic pose, IQ isn't great however, I don't see much detail in the blacks and noise has crept in.

TFS

[Henry Domke]

Despite the fact that Artie and Chris like your first post more I like the second one. Now there is more texture in the shadows and especially the highlights. I think "Auto-contrast" is dangerous. Better to take a look at the image and see what it needs.

[Steve Large]

Incredible pose; a truly great flight image with the incredible dorsal view, the trailing feet, and the splayed tail. The original is miles better than the repost which is way overdone... An all water BKGR would have put this one way over the top. I am betting that the boxy crop is from too slow a pan with the active AF sensor near the tail or the feet.... Can you please post the full frame capture?

Hi Artie,
Thanks for your comments. And you were quite correct as this was a crop from the left hand side of the frame. Took about a six shot sequence and this was one of the few that was in decent focus. If the truth be known, I like the first one too. Sometimes a person just tries too hard to please everyone with the remake and then ends up worse off :t3.

Take care and good light,

Steve

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Artie,
Thanks for your comments. And you were quite correct as this was a crop from the left hand side of the frame. Took about a six shot sequence and this was one of the few that was in decent focus. If the truth be known, I like the first one too. Sometimes a person just tries too hard to please everyone with the remake and then ends up worse off :t3.

Take care and good light,

Steve

It's a fine liine in being open to suggestions and improving an image--that is something that I do often here, and believing in your own vision. For the repost I ran a 30% layer of NIK DE and TC (and worry that I still might have over-done it a bit.... Also did a motion blur on the rocks in the BKGR and painted that in with a Hide-All Mask. Not sure if the motion blur bit is in Digital Basics (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252) but everything else and tons more is.

[Steve Large]

It's a fine liine in being open to suggestions and improving an image--that is something that I do often here, and believing in your own vision. For the repost I ran a 30% layer of NIK DE and TC (and worry that I still might have over-done it a bit.... Also did a motion blur on the rocks in the BKGR and painted that in with a Hide-All Mask. Not sure if the motion blur bit is in Digital Basics (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252) but everything else and tons more is.

Hi Artie,
Thanks for your work and time on this. Got to admit that the motion blur on the background does help to add more attention to the subject. I will have to try NIK DE and TC sometime but as of now do not own that particular program. I do own a copy of "Digital Basics" though.

Take care,

Steve

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for your purchase :). The motion blur is a Denise Ippolito trick.