Northern Shoveler

[Bill Scott]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post to any photo forum of any kind and have only shared pictures with family You guys seem to be having a good time here and I've enjoyed and learned from the photos and critiques.So I decided to quit lurking and join the fun. I've been interested in photography for many years off and on, but would consider myself just an amateur.

This photo was taken at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson AZ in the late afternoon. It was a raw capture and it was converted (and cropped) in Camera Raw in PS CS3, No further adjustments were made in PS.

Canon 20D
300mm f4 with 1.4 extender
ISO 200, 1/ 1000 at 5.6
Gitzo Tripod/RRS ballhead

Any comments would be appreciated.

Bill Scott
Tucson AZ

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Welcome, Bill. Great idea to join and post. I'm sure it's more fun this way. :)

I like the pose, eye contact and water colors. You could have gone to ISO 400 since a little less wing blur would have improved the image. In your RAW converter you could try to tone down the whites since they look borderline hot and don't have much detail. The water in the foreground looks very nice, in the BG the pattern looks not so great. A lower angle (if that was possible) would have prevented that. I might crop a bit off the top.

Keep them coming. :)

[Bill Scott]

Thanks for the comments Axel. I think you're right on with the whites and the ISO. I got as much out of them as I could in the raw converter, but you can't recover what's not there. I also agree on the wings. I would have liked a little more room at the bottom. I have another photo from the day with what I think has better BG. I'll post it and see what folks think.

thanks again,

Bill Scott
Tucson AZ

[Blake Shadle]

Welcome! I'm glad that you decided to post on BPN! This image is so close! Pushing your ISO 400 would have given you the shutter speed you needed to get pretty close to frozen wings. The whites in his neck are detailess, as mentioned. If this is something that you have a chance to go out and do again, you're going to come back with some much improved images.

One suggestion that I might give when doing action, is to give yourself some cushion off your max aperture. The 300 f/4 + the 1.4X pushes your max aperture to f/5.6... to make sure you have enough DOF during action, shoot closer to f/6.3 or f/7.1... this is unless the background you're trying to create won't allow it.

Overall, very well done :)

[Alfred Forns]

Big Welcome Scott !!!!! I'm sure you could get some detail in the whites by duplicating the layer and multiplying Best is to guard against over exposure while making the image You will find some birds are difficult and this is one of the most !!!

[Richard Kowalski]

Nice shot Bill & welcome. I need to get back over to Sweetwater soon myself. Heading down to Buenos Aires NWR on Saturday. With the recent rains I'm hoping Aqquire & Mormon lakes are full.

Other than the comments above, it seems to be a bit of sharpening halo all the way around.

Richard

[Bill Scott]

I really appreciate everyone's comments. The constructive criticism is much more helpful than the simple affirmative or negative comment. I did try Alfred's multiply blending technique suggestion and it did recover some detail in the white, especially around the edges. My PS skills would probably be described as, knows just enough to be dangerous :)