Stand Up And Be Counted!

[Wendy Kates]

Here is another image from the low-light photo shoot last weekend. All of the ducklings would have been in better focus had I had enough light to increase my aperture. It won't win any contests, but it's so cute, I couldn't resist posting it!
Canon 7D, 300mm f/4 lens, 1.4 extender
1/160s
f/5/6
ISO 1000
tripod

[Randall Farhy]

Wendy, the low shutter and limited DoF don't really bother me with this one. It's a fun action shot with focus where it needs to be. The movement blur adds to the mood. If there were more DoF, I fear the bg might have been too distracting. That said, the rock on the right is too bright as is the smaller one on the left edge. I'd try a tighter crop or a vignette to bring the viewer attention to the group and reduce the impact of the large dark blob in the bg. There's also a green fringe on the contrast edge in the bg, easily addressed in LR5. (It's an inherent issue with this lens). I don't know how much the image is cropped from original, but a thought to increase SS or reduce ISO would be to remove the extender when not absolutely necessary-the 300F4 can produce extremely sharp images that can be cropped 40-50% with very acceptable results. RP: Rock burned, slight CW roatation, defringed, crop and vingette. (Not sure about the Vignette)-If I had more time I might try cloning out the upper black spots in the bg and the rock on the right. TFS!

[Diane Miller]

Randall nailed it!! And the vignette is perfect.

The image is SO cute, with the ducklings marching in formation! As he said, the small DOF and motion blur are not distracting or major elements, for me.

Keep shooting these little guys!

[Wendy Kates]

Thanks, Randall and Diane. I've followed Randall's advice and tried to make the BG more uniform by cloning out the black spots from the BG. Hopefully I didn't overdo it. Also cropped accordingly and added the vignette. I couldn't really see the green fringe in the BG edge, and since I was working from a psd file in PS, I wasn't sure how to fix it. Let me know if this RP still needs work. I do agree that since it these little guys are so cute, it is worth optimizing.

[Diane Miller]

Great improvements! The cloning looks excellent. I'd be tempted to soften the edge above the leftmost duckling, with a large partial opacity clone brush, but only if that didn't wipe out any grain so the area was obvious. (I can't tell from this size if that would be a factor but with so much cloning already, I doubt it would be.)

The edge artifact isn't very obvious to me but should be fixable with cloning, too. Or if the color is that noticeable, maybe just brush across a soft-edged quick mask and do a hue-sat adjustment layer, then tweak the mask edges as needed.

[Iain Barker]

Hi Wendy

I really like this and your repost is an improvement on your OP.

I can't really see the fringing but if there is some when you zoom in on your original image there is a filter to fix it in photoshop. Filter->Distort->Lens Correction there are then sliders for CA.

[Randall Farhy]

Looks good Wendy- the C/A mentioned earlier is minor, most noticeable at the base of the lead ducklings neck where the water meets the darker shoreline and on the lower left edge of the large OOF rock.

[Wendy Kates]

Ah...I see it now...thanks, Randall. By the way, I'm hoping to return to this site in the next few days, and depending on the conditions, I'm going to try to shoot with the 300mm without the extender, as you suggested.

[BillTyler]

You caught the perfect moment. The balance between the two outer birds, both with one leg lifted, is just great, and then the heads all pointing the same! Great job.

Bill