A fish's worse nightmare

[Randy Stout]

Taken a few years ago , never processed. This would have to be pretty scary for a fish!

D4 600VR. f/6.3. 1/1600s, ISO 640 . Fill flash with SB900 and better beamer

Post: LRCC, PS2021. 20% crop for composition. Cleaned up some spots in the water

Advice and comments always appreciated.

Cheers

Randy

[Brian Sump]

Randy, traveling and on my small Macbook but I can tell you the IQ looks strong from here (I suspect nothing less from your Loons) and fwiw, I have no idea what a D4 is lol.

I've never shot with a flash and curious, does it hang off of one side or the other of your rig? Perhaps the right side as the Loons right side of the face (our left) is shaded?

The straight-on is dead nuts and I love that. Where the Jekkyl/Hyde effect may be slightly less than desirable vs a well lit frontal view, the detail in the open mouth brings it up multiple notches.

Beautiful pov, great comp and gorgeous green palette!

[Randy Stout]

Brian:

I use a Wimberley flash bracket, which in my case is set off to the left of the camera and above the axis of the lens, to reduce red eye issues. The trick of course is to provide some fill without making it overpowering. In this case, the natural light was coming from the birds left side, and the flash just helped fill in some of the shadows. I still had to lift the shadows a bit on the right side of his face.

Randy

[gail bisson]

Pretty intense view of the inside of the beak/mouth.
Terrific low POV, and lovely green water.
I love all the water drops on the face.
Good use of flash.
This is not an easy shot to get.
In a perfect world, you and the bird would have been directly on sun angle (behind you) so that the face was illuminated equally on both sides but that is a minor nit
and I am being super picky this AM! Gotta keep you on your toes!:bg3:
Gail

[Randy Stout]

Thanks Gail:

The unique bit about this shot is the wide open mouth with the red throat, and with natural lighting only, the inside of the throat would have been in the shadows cast from the sun, even if straight ahead. Only way to get it to pop is with a touch of flash. I absolutely get your point, but I am happy with the balance of light here.

Cheers

Randy

[Steve Kaluski]

Pretty cool perspective Randy and perhaps unique. The fill-in worked perfectly and you have the low POV down to a fine art. Personally I like a tad more below, with less above, but hey... :cheers:

TFS
Steve

[John Mack]

Nice title. Love the view of that open mouth. The low angle is bang on. The flash is very well balanced.