Foggy sunrise

[Randy Stout]

This common loon was captured in Northern Michigan several weeks ago. So foggy that it was hard to find the loons for a while!

D4 600mm f/4 @ 5.6, 1/6400s ISO 500. Pedestal mounted in my little boat.

Post: slight crop for comp, selective sharpening.

Thoughts and advice always appreciated.

Cheers

Randy

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Randy, I'm loving the 'etherial', misty, tranquil atmosphere in this shot. Park the fine details, HA etc, to me is all about the moment and setting the scene. The smokey, burnt umber, monochromatic look is great and so just different!

I think it can stand some more sharpening, but I can also see another option where the water below the Loon is darker, more moody, albeit you may need to address some of the more dominate vertical streaks.

Sadly the closest I will get to floating around in a little boat will be a very bouncy zodiac next month. :bg3:

TFS
Steve :cheers:

[Jonathan Ashton]

Love it Randy, very atmospheric, I like the loon as is - especially the pale feathers on the neck. I too would suggest playing around with the misty area especially under the loon, I remember a while back I had some shots of fallow dear early morning, misty & moody and playing around with the tones of the mist really is worth spending some time on. Great shot!

[Dorian Anderson]

Great mellow mood, and the soft transitions of light throughout the scene looks really nice. It might be worth playing around with the tonal sliders just to see what else you can generate; unlike standard front-lit shots, there often one best an dobvious way to process the image. I disagree about sharpening. You do not need more detail here. Minimizing noise is more important.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks guys, I appreciate your input. I intentionally left it misty/foggy in the foreground to play up how foggy it was that day. I do believe it could be tweaked to reduce that effect, and will give it a go, but am not certain if that will give quite the feel I was shooting for.

Appreciate your thoughtful observations

Randy

[John Mack]

Very nice. Rarely see frames like this one here. Love the mist and the whole mood on this one. The pano crop works very well.

[Aditya Sridhar]

Stunning shot Randy! Love the overall mood of the image. There really isn't anything that I would change. I see a dust spot on the LHS that needs to be cloned out but that's about it. Great work!

[Alex Becker]

Love the setting, pose, water drops, and BG. Really nice overall. Yes to a couple of the suggestions above, but great as is. Very unique shot. TFS