Jim Fenton
07-11-2010, 09:21 AM
The males have distinctly blacker beaks than the females during this time of the season and this guy and my kayak drifted quietly in fairly close proximity to one another for a good head shot.
At firs, I thought I would have liked a bit more of a turned HA, but I never would have gotten as much as I did in the field of focus as this was shot at very close range.
BTW...the little things that look like "repeated patterns" in front of the bird are not..they are simply reflections on the wavelets in front of the bird as it was moving.
The other thing I noted while spending a lot of time carefully studying these birds through the binoculars is that in the correct light, they have a definite greenish / cyanish cast to the face and neck are...but only in the right light and only if you don't bury the blacks.
Crop may be a bit tight for some, but due to the patterns in the surface of the water, I couldn't come up with a realistic looking fill and I kinda like the eye being close to the center anyway.
Rather than processing in Nikon NX2 as I typically do, the RAW was converted in CS5...ACR seems to be doing a better job these days with the latest version.
Nikon D300s, 300f4 AFS handheld, TC14EII, ISO 500, 1/500, f5.6, NearUniWB, CW metering -1.0 EV
At firs, I thought I would have liked a bit more of a turned HA, but I never would have gotten as much as I did in the field of focus as this was shot at very close range.
BTW...the little things that look like "repeated patterns" in front of the bird are not..they are simply reflections on the wavelets in front of the bird as it was moving.
The other thing I noted while spending a lot of time carefully studying these birds through the binoculars is that in the correct light, they have a definite greenish / cyanish cast to the face and neck are...but only in the right light and only if you don't bury the blacks.
Crop may be a bit tight for some, but due to the patterns in the surface of the water, I couldn't come up with a realistic looking fill and I kinda like the eye being close to the center anyway.
Rather than processing in Nikon NX2 as I typically do, the RAW was converted in CS5...ACR seems to be doing a better job these days with the latest version.
Nikon D300s, 300f4 AFS handheld, TC14EII, ISO 500, 1/500, f5.6, NearUniWB, CW metering -1.0 EV