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Richard Unsworth
10-24-2010, 12:00 PM
Hi

Spotted this pretty Teal; the UK's smallest duck in amongst hundreds of Mallards - just 1 Teal
Unfortunately the light was difficult; across the lake from the left of pic.

Particularly like the water drops though

Canon 40D 100-400 at 320
f 5.6 SS 1/4000 ISO 800

Rich
John Guastella
10-24-2010, 12:44 PM
You did the best you could with the difficult light, Richard. You could try bringing up the shadows a bit in ACR or PS, but since the image was captured at ISO 800, you'll need to watch out for noise.

The image lacks sharpness on my monitor. This could be due to the harsh light, which I have found can give the impression of fuzziness with certain birds, like ducks.

The colors seem oversaturated to me - an easy fix in PS. BG is very noisy, but again, this can be fixed easily in PS with some selective NR.

John
Daniel Cadieux
10-24-2010, 01:50 PM
If your teals are like ours, then they are normally quite wary. Lucky when we spot one associating with Mallards as this often means approachability:). You are right when you say the light was difficult. High, harsh, and off-angle. I'd suggest reducing contrat here (try a reverse S-curve). I also agree with John's mentions of saturation and noise. I imagine this guy was busy feeding with all the water drops on its head!
Richard Unsworth
10-24-2010, 01:51 PM
Hi John

THANKS

Yes I think I got over exuberant with the sat!

went back to raw
quick masked for NR to BG
USM @ 122, 1.0, 0

MUCH BETTER!

Rich
John Guastella
10-24-2010, 02:32 PM
A vast improvement!

John
Layton E Parham
10-24-2010, 03:44 PM
Much better repost. You might consider removing a few overexposed pixels.
Arthur Morris
10-24-2010, 04:59 PM
You did get quite close :) The repost is an improvement over the garish, over-saturated ORIG but is s bit dark. Working in harsh, off angled light is beyond difficult. With the light from the left the forehead and breast are in dark shadow. A ton of flash with a Better Beamer would likely have helped to even out the light.
Richard Unsworth
10-25-2010, 02:13 AM
Hi

Thanks all

After Daniel posted I ran a reverse S curve so reposting as...

Rich
Ákos Lumnitzer
10-26-2010, 12:27 AM
If the light came from over your right shoulder it would have been awesome. As is, it's a difficult situation and I feel you did your best. From the presented image, I believe this may be a large crop judging by the lacking of fine detail and noise in the water especially. In any case, you are heading in the right direction. :)