Eider

[William Dickson]

Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/6.3
1/1600
ISO 800

This is one from the weekend, from my usual perch at the local harbour. Eider and Goldeneye(black and white), are the only ducks in the harbour at this time of the year. It sure tests the exposure skills, especially when the lighting is not the best.

Will

[gail bisson]

Yes, you are right about the light needed to be perfect to nail the exposure on these black and white ducks!
Good POV and HA. Whites a bit hot on the shoulder/back.
I like the sense of movement on the water,
gail

[William Dickson]

Thanks for that Gail. The whites on my monitor look ok. They are measuring 238 at the most. There is a very small part on the shoulder at 240. Calibrated a couple of days ago.

Will

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Nice Image. I like Eiders a lot. I am yet to see them out in the field.

Exposure seems to be good. I don't see any issues with any hot pixels.

Thanks For Sharing

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot Will, I would suggest reducing contrast slightly.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Will, a lovely image of this subject and well done on the exposure, looks pretty spot on to me, right on the edge before blowing, good to check that histogram. You have truck loads of detail in the whites, so some careful adjustments with Curves for the Whites (quarter tones) & HL's just pulls more out and even as an sRGB 256 colour image you can see how much you can extract, so if you have the time I would revisit the file and work on layers & masks. The Raw will give you a huge amount of control & range to play with. Agree with Jon, a slight drop in the Shadows & Contrast just helps the darker blacks. Maybe get some colour back into the water too????

You could try changing some setting too within the 1DX, but my preference is that the MKII is far better, but I will ponder and drop you a line if the conditions are similar, you can far off a few frames and see. Hope you are not too snow, as I think Neil is getting the brunt of it all today.

TFS
Steve

[William Dickson]

Thanks for that guys. Much appreciated. Hi Steve thanks for the tips and the repost. I'll have another go at it. Regarding the exposure. Since that day about 3 years ago, when I posted a seal, and you grilled me about the exposure settings. Well because of that, I made it my aim to get the exposure correct, so thanks for that :S3:

Will