Wood duck

[arash_hazeghi]

I got this frame at the Reifel bird sanctuary in Vancouver area. The wood ducks are quite handsome.

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Shot with 1D-X and 300 f/2.8 II +2XIII. ISO 2500. F/5.6 at 1/1000sec. hand held. processed with DPP4. hope you like it

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Arash, beautiful image. Lovely colours, shooting angle and details. I am visiting Vancouver in June this year from India. It will be helpful if you can share birding spots in and around Vancouver.
Thanks. Appreciate it.

[dankearl]

Arash,
Nice angle but you have no detail in the whites at all...
You may want to look at this again.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks Dan, wood duck whites don't show much detail in flat light.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image. Wonderful colors and superb details. Do agree about CW rotation.

Regards,
Satish.

[shane shacaluga]

What a funky looking duck! Its an explosion of colour. I agree the waterline and shadow may need CW rotation but the head angle may not look right if you do rotate it

TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

Woodducks are one of the most beautiful ducks. Nice proud pose captured here.
I agree with Dan, the whites are without details. This usually means that the whites are blown, as here.
The lack of detail in whites is usually not caused by the type of light, but by something else...
I also think, based on the reflection, that you need a little CW rotation.


The whites are not blown. Here is a 100% crop from RAW.

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With soft feathers that have no pattern on them the only way to get visible detail/contrast is trough micro-shadows. In flat light such micro-shadows don't exist so it is hard to see edges of detail in that area.

hope this helps

[John Robinson]

Arash
This is interesting. dowloaded both pics and the whites are blown on the OP - all readng 255 and yet on your close up crop they are fine !
Strange.
Cheers
JohnR

[arash_hazeghi]

I think during JPEG conversion they become worse because of compression. Here is a retry where I brought down the whites lower in RAW so they would have more tonality in the final JPEG. Still not much detail in that area but maybe a bit better looking than the original. I like to keep the whites close to 250 range. I did wish I had sweet evening light here but it was cloudy all day.

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[John Robinson]

That's much better- so at least my cheap monitor isn't that far off !!
JohnR

[Daniel Cadieux]

Yes I agree the RP is better for those whites. I agree with CW rotation too, but the colours and details are fantastic. The open bill is neat and adds to the image.

[dankearl]

Repost much better, Arash.
I thought another Arash Hazeghi had posted the first one.........

[arash_hazeghi]

believe it or not the first one doesn't look that bad on my workstation 30" SIPS panel but it does look solid flat on my mac book screen and the cheap Dell screens at work that have limited highlight gamut.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Peter,

I don't usually measure pixels. I just look at the final file and decide whether I like it or not.

Glad the repost looks better.

best

[Daniel Cadieux]

The Wood Duck is such a striking bird that perhaps it made you inadvertently overlook past those whites, overlooking a detail like this has happened to most of us..I know it's happened to me on a few occasions! Anyhow, the repost is of the processing that we expect from you. You've set such a high standard for your images that anything less is immediately noticeable :-)

[Joseph Przybyla]

Beautiful bird, nicely shown. On my display the repost is much better showing the detail in the whites that your RAW image has. I wonder how that image looks on your Mac Book or your cheap Dell screen at work.

[David Salem]

I'm the same way Arash, I don't usually measure pixels, I just use my eye and go with what looks good. This one did look a bit bright on the OP but re-post looks spot on.
Nice wood duck frame from you! Glad to see you shooting some ducks:S3:

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Ari, you just nail them time and time again. Excellent detail and sharpness, and the colours are very striking. I like the proud pose, and the texture of the water. Well captured.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks everyone

[Arthur Morris]

believe it or not the first one doesn't look that bad on my workstation 30" SIPS panel but it does look solid flat on my mac book screen and the cheap Dell screens at work that have limited highlight gamut.

On my Macbook Pro the WHITEs in the original post look totally washed out and completely over-exposed with no detail. The repost is much better. Just for the record books, I like to bring my bright WHITEs into Photoshop with RGB values no greater than 235. By doing that I do not have to do any extra work to assure detail in the brightest highlights. The venerable Denise Ippolito prefers to bring here WHITEs in with no RGB values above 240. It is a long way from 235 or 240 to 250. Respectfully.