Red-breasted Merganser female

[Ron Sprunger]

April at Fort DeSoto. Stood there for a half hour grooming mostly.

Nikon D7000, 500mm f/4, from car with beanbag, a little beach cleanup. Cropped to about 70%.
1/1250 @f/4, ISO 400, Av +1
C&C welcome and appreciated. Should I do more with the BG (lighten/darken/etc.)? I'm wishing I could have gotten the feet, and better HA.

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[RakeshDhareshwar]

Lovely angle and pose here, Ron . The reflection on the water on the LHC distracts a bit . Also , I agree that the BG should be darkened a bit to accentuate the bird . Otherwise , lovely details on the bird .

[Ron Sprunger]

Thanks for looking Rakesh. Is this better?

102205

[Mital Patel]

Ron,

I like your repost. IQ is good here.
Repost is much better.
May be from raw you could have recovered that white on wing.

[MohsenVahedipour]

Great shooting angle with excellent sharpness & details.

[Ron Sprunger]

Thank you Mohsen. Rakesh, the interesting part about the white is that it's not blown out at all, as far as I can see in the RAW histogram, and there is some gross detail available there. With the angle of light, and the feathers settled and clean, they're pretty featureless. I thought of adding 10-15 points of black just to that area, but ultimately didn't. I just went back to the raw and cut the exposure on that area only, with this result:

102218

Does that seem better to you, or does it just make it look a little gray?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Ron, that little bit of added detail at the bottom of the white wing patch adds alot, so yes it is better. Sometimes if you work an area like this zoomed way in you can see faint lines between the feathers...using the burn tool on those lines can help alot too.

Nice scene overall, good comp, I like the clean up of the highlights in the water. There is enough of the feet showing for me, but I agree a better HA would have been great, especially with the light coming from the right.

[Ishmeet Sahni]

Ron, I like the image in Pane #6 better, by reducing the exposure you have added more texture, it looks good.

Overall a very very good image, a nice pose, great HA, lovely BG......:5

[Robert Holguin]

Excellent shot. Very sharp and very good detail. I really like the comp and exposed well.
Well done.