Surf Scoter in Flight

[Doug Brown]

I've always wanted to get a good flight shot of a Surf Scoter. In the waning minutes of my last trip to Huntington Beach, Jim Salywoda saw one rocketing towards us. I squeezed off a few frames and was quite pleased when I saw this shot on the camera's LCD.

Canon 50D, 500mm, f/6.3, 1/4000, ISO 400, -1/3 EC, no flash, hand held

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool wing position, angle and BG. I might try to bring out a few more details in the shadows.

[david cramer]

Very good work on the exp, Doug. Head could use some more sharpening.

[Bob Malbon]

Doug, Love the attack angle. Maybe try to sharpen the eye some. Bob

[Tony Whitehead]

Amazing duck - agree re trying to bring out a bit more in the dark areas but nice wing detail and head and bill are amazing.

[Doug Brown]

I tried bringing out the detail in the blacks, but wasn't happy with the level of noise. I'll do a repost and let you all weigh in on it. These birds are a real exposure challenge!

[Doug Brown]

Here's a new version. Lightened the shadows and did some selective sharpening.

[Fabs Forns]

Excellent pose and a face ti die for :)
Another vote for more detail in the blacks, I guess the back is gone.

[John Ippolito]

Exciting and handsome duck coming at you. The head sharpening looks very good on the repost, but it would be nice for even more detail in the blacks. Excellent capture.

[Stu Bowie]

I like the wing position here Doug, and love the colours around the head. Your repost works very well, and congrats on a superb image Doug.

[Arthur Morris]

Sick! Best flight image of this species I have ever seen. Heck, not sure that I have ever seen one. The angle of the bird and the wing position are killer, the EXP workable. The repost is better. All that you have to do now if make a QM of the eye and darken it by dragging the curve down. This will greatly increase the apparent sharpness. Many ducks (like this species and the scaup) have mysterious floating pupils that are really difficult to render sharply. (Same with flamingoes but for a different reason I believe.)

[Glenn Bartley]

Really nice Doug........you keep giving me hope that I can get flight images with my 50D ;)

[Juan Aragonés]

Doug this image is fantastic. By no mean it is easy to capture a duck in flight coming directly to you and you did it very well. The light is fantastic and the species is to die for. Oh man, this one is really sweet. Terrific eye contact, sharpness, pose and BG. I can live with some more noise in the sahdows only to enjoy more details on the blacks. I have playing a bit with the image and it is easy to extract more details in the blacks but, of course, I am doing that with a small jpeg and the result may look very different (not as good) with a full size file. Anyhow, you v¡can be happy with this flight. Big congratulations!

[Tony House]

Nice work, great wing position and nicely framed.

Tony

[Leroy Laverman]

Very cool. The only times I've every seen these birds flying was way off in the distance. You really nailed this - wing position, body/head angle, light all very nice. I ran a S/H at default settings and then noise ninja and got the following. Curious what other think. The second post still looks too dark in the shadows but I see in PS that they are not really clipped. Maybe I need to recalibrate my screen again.

[John Chardine]

I continue to marvel at how Doug, Artie and others are able to photograph flying ducks (read bullets, missiles etc) with 500/600/800 mm lenses. I find the technical challenges enormous- most of the time just getting the bird in the view finder is my main hurdle. Maybe I didn't play enough video games as a youngster. Oh yes, they weren't invented then.

Superb Doug. The button eye and rendering of the fantastic bill are outstanding. The eye makes me think that these scoters are related to auklets (they are not!).

[Melvin Grey]

Beautiful image of this dramatic duck. Great wing position and very good detail on the re-post for such a difficult subject - I would love to see a quality print of this from the full file. I saw my first Surf Scoter in Churchill, this year, but only in the distance.