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Richard Kowalski
02-08-2008, 10:37 PM
A rather quiet dawn at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson... Well bird activity wise; actually thousands of Red Winged & Yellow Headed Blackbirds were making a deafening racket when I got out of my car!

Not too much out of the ordinary when I was there, but many of the Shovelers were taking their morning baths. I captured this male in the middle of wing drying. The previous image in the sequence has near perfect wing position behind him, but I like this pose best. Not too sure of the Head Angle though. I think a little more towards me probably would have been better.

I was concerned about burning out the whites and needed to bring the exposure up in ACR by 2/3rds stop before the first pixels saturated, so while the neck looks a bit hot in this version, it isn't in the original. Boy these really are tough to expose correctly! Time for me to review ABP (the softcover book) Chapter 3 again I guess!

Canon 20D, 1/1000th, ISO 400, EV -1.0, Av
Sigma 50-500 - 500mm @ f/ 6.3
WB, exposure & crop in ACR, Noise Ninja, ccw rotation, S/H adjustment, touch of eye sharpen, +10 blue channel saturation, cloned out part of a Widgeon head in bg w/ PS

Nonda Surratt
02-09-2008, 07:54 AM
Hi Richard!

I like the pose and a bit of wing blur, you do have eye contact, very nice detail too!

What I can't quite figure out is the head color, are they not pretty green? Sun angle maybe?

Richard Kowalski
02-09-2008, 09:04 AM
Yes Nonda, their heads are an iridescent green when the sunlight hits the feathers correctly, otherwise they look dark, almost black.

Nonda Surratt
02-09-2008, 10:42 AM
Thanks Richard, I've had that happen with mallards.

Fabs Forns
02-09-2008, 10:59 AM
Excellent all around, great exposure in the whites, good pose, great head angle and nicely placed in the frame. You get the cigar :)

George DeCamp
02-09-2008, 04:07 PM
Hey Richard!

This one rocks!!

I like the pose, the BG, the colors and the techs look really good! Seems to me this one would do well in the Avian, Wild and Free Birds (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2)forum!

Very well done!

Richard Kowalski
02-09-2008, 10:26 PM
Thanks for the cigar Fabs. It's been a while since I had one!

Thanks for the comments George. I've been learning a lot from everyone on this fantastic site. Kudos to all those involved in starting and developing it!