Surf Scoter on Wave

[Grace Scalzo]

Here's one for the January theme. Taken yesterday on the eastern most tip of the North Fork of Long Island (Orient Point State Park). I have many pics of Surf Scoters but most are off of a jetty. Thrilled when a small group paddled by me close to shore and afforded me this nice low angle. Black birds are hard! I was most concerned during exposure to protect the whites but not totally thrilled with the resulting blacks, which got worse when converted to Jpeg. Every processing thing that I tried seemed to lead to noise so if you have suggestions, they would be welcome.

1/2500, f8, iso800
Canon 1dx, 600 f4 + 2.0tc + lowered rrs tripod

[Ian Wilson]

Hi Grace, I think you have done quite well in this light. Seabirds and waterbirds are often difficult because their feathers have a film of waterproofing oil which reduces contrast in the feather detail. If you increase contrast in the blacks by increasing the slope of the gamma curve you also increase the contrast of any noise that may be present. Then one finds selective NR is required and it becomes like a dog chasing its tail.

[arash_hazeghi]

Love how he is surfing the small wave! sharp with good details and good light and also love the white, red, blue and black color palette. I think you should be able to pull more detail from the blacks without any compromise in quality.

well done

[Bob Smith]

Black and white waterfowl are tough subjects and I think you've captured a good image here Grace but I'd be interested to see if you can pull any more detail out of the black here as suggested by Arash--I shoot a lot of brant in light ranging from fog to bright sun and it can be mightily challenging to get the right exposure and reveal the black feather detail.

[Randy Stout]

Grace:

I like your scoter, and the low shooting angle and riding the wave help a lot.

I occ. shoot black and white birds :S3:, and it is always a struggle on the exposure unless the light is soft. Because our cameras show us a jpeg based histogram, and not from the raw data, there is often a lot of exposure we are leaving on the table when we judge whites based on the in camera histogram or blinkies. I also set my jpeg profile to flat or neutral, to get as close to the raw data as possible. The other option would be to do a double conversion of the file, one for the whites, one for the blacks, and combining them. A bit tedious, but does work. Artie had a nice little blurb about his tech. for this a few years ago.

I suspect you know all this, but sometimes a little tweak can really save the day.

Cheers

Randy

[Miguel Palaviccini]

When I first saw it as a thumbnail I couldn't help but think it needed some rotation. Now I see the Scoter is surfing on the wave! Appropriate I guess :)

It would be neat to try out some of the suggestions above to see if you can pull out some more detail. This is a killer image!

[Arthur Morris]

In a word, loverly. Do you use NIK CEP?

[gail bisson]

This is lovely Grace.
Love the silkiness of the water and the way he is riding the wave.
IQ excellent as always,
Gail

[Grace Scalzo]

Thanks everyone. Randy, yes, that's how I have my camera set up too , so I can see as accurately as possible, the raw capture on my histogram. In this case I had data nearly touching each end of the spectrum. I will see what I can do to bring up the blacks. Artie, Thank you. Yes, I did some finishing work in CEP- tonal contrast. An invaluable piece of software in my workflow.