handsome male Tufted Duck

[John Chardine]

I don't often get a chance to make images of this beautiful species, the Tufted Duck of Europe; more commonly I have it's closely related cousin close by- the Ring-necked Duck of North America.

This image was made at the eastern end of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, and what a marvelous place it is.

I cropped, cleaned up the water a little, sharpened and that's it. Comments welcome!

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, 70-200/4 IS x 1.4 tc = 280 mm
capture date: 22 March 2010, 10:08 AM
exposure program: Manual
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/1600
aperture: f7.1
exposure bias: +0.0
metering: Pattern
flash: ON - beamer,(no exposure bias if I remember correctly)

[Ian McHenry]

Hi John
As someone originally from Scotland this is one of my favourite ducks.
Image is clearly defined but although a diving duck it seems a bit over denoised with loss of feather detail.
Still a beautiful image.
Cheers: Ian Mc

[Fabs Forns]

Great reflection and compo, and perfect head angle. Wish you could get some detail out of the dark head.
Glad you had a great time, your RBG will posted tomorrow!

[John Chardine]

Thanks! Ian- no NR performed so he is what he is.

The lighting was tough that day and there was no opportunity to have the sun behind us, hence the use of flash. But flash does not work well with black feathers, so all in all it wasn't ideal; great fun though.

[Fabs Forns]

Well, I'm a stubborn old gal, so downloaded it and tried Nik' reflector Silver, twice. Did I overdo it? I've never seen the bird, so no easy to figure.

[John Chardine]

Thanks Fabs. I was playing with the image too. I think your repost works. It does show the green iridescence in the head but is suffering from the "flash-sheen" that you get from black feathers, which is my fault.

This is what the histogram looks like on the original image. It doesn't look terribly blocked on the black end.

[Fabs Forns]

Second try, I decided to go further and do some fancy dodging. Project of the night :)

[Marina Scarr]

Hi John:

What a lovely subject you have here with very nice comp, BG and reflection. Fabs did a good job reworking it. I wish it were just about taking the picture and not the computer work it takes afterwards to attain the final product.

[Stu Bowie]

Lovely looking species John, and I like the low angle, and BG colours. I feel there's not too much wrong with the exposure in your OP, but Fabs does bring out that little extra.

[Ian McHenry]

Really like Fabs 2nd post.
Has that more duck to person look !!!
Ian Mc

[John Chardine]

Thanks for taking the time Fabs. This is what BPN is all about! I think the repost is a good balance and brings out some of the shadow detail without being excessive.

Marina-I've said this before but for me, the post-processing is a joy as you see your RAW image develop into something. It is a critical part of the artistic process of digital photography in my view. I don't think photography was ever about just clicking the shutter button with some exceptions such as slide film photography where you have very little opportunity do anything except maybe use a different matte for composition (ignoring Cibachromes here). The modern age of digital photography has ironically brought us full circle to the days when clicking the shutter was only the first of several stages in making an image.

[Paul Lagasi]

Really nice capture John, Fabs lovely work on repost...the image shows the tuft well...which is often tough with these guys...thanks for sharing...

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

John, I am a big fan of these kinds of images. Beautiful comp. just the right angle to get that reflection and still be low enough. Thx for sharing.