Pintail - Bosque

[Ron Boisvert]

Canon 20D, 70-200 f/4, w/ 1.4X TC, @ 280mm, HH
ISO 400, f/7.1 @ 1/1600, Auto Exposure, Av, +1/3EV, 1/3/2009, 10:43am
50%+cropped all around, some weeds removed

The raw did not show any amount of detail in the right side neck feathers. I don't know that there's much detail to catch; the recovery slider in ACR quickly recovered some flashed highlights but no detail emerged.
All comments and suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Ron,

Beautiful baby, but seems flat/soft as you noted. That size crop in a HH mode can produce soft images. Regarding the recovery of highlights, were there some hotspots in neck area (did you clip on the right). The +1/3 looks a little suspect when trying to protect white highlights.

Great reflection and peaceful image - nice job, wish I were there.

[Desmond Chan]

This looks over-exposed to me. Sharpness-wise it looks very close, i.e., perhaps just a tad more sharpness. If I'd do that I'd start with the eye, the face and the beak. Too bad about the blown areas.

[Lance Peters]

HI Ron - the whites do look like they have little detail - they are not over though according to the histogram.
You sure you cant get some more detail out of the RAW??
Think it looks sharp enough - although the eye could do with some attention.
Keep em coming :)

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Ron,
I like the composition...your whites are a little warm, but not over, the eye needs just a tad more of sharpening...would have liked to have seen a lower capture angle if possible...I like the reflection and the position of your subject in frame...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Ron I think it might be just over

Sometimes selecting by color then duplicating will bring out detail in the white area, might give it a try ... sweet water !!!!!

[Bob Miller]

Ron...So much to like about this image...the water and reflections are sweet! In regards to the blown highlights...if you can't bring out detail maybe you could just tone down that brightness....You might try selective color....select whites....add just a bit of black...Just a thought!

[Doug Brown]

Good-looking Pintail. I suspect that the whites are recoverable; there are a number of tutorials on recovering whites in the Educational Resources forum.

[Harold Davis]

great pose from a beautiful bird and some sweet looking water!! one trick i learned from SOMEONE around here is that you could actually clone a little texture into that area if it's too blown to recover. worth a shot for sure!!

[Ron Boisvert]

Thanks you all for the suggestions and comments. As for the lower capture angle, I would have loved to get lower, but the foreground weeds were in the way. Looking much harder at the raw capture, I see that even where I can recover detail, there's not much to see. The whites become mostly a smooth gray. I think I did overexpose this shot a little as well. I may revisit this image later this week and see what I can come up with, just as a learning experience.

Thanks again for all the advice and comments. I really appreciate it.

Ron