Splish splash this Shoveler is taking a bath

This is one of those images that you recall taking but don't quite know why you never processed it sooner. This was taken in February 2012 at Reifel Bird Sanctuary while I was lying flat on the shore line at water level. The Shoveler was not in its most elegant plumage, but the colours certainly worked well with the winter foliage. Techs Canon 7D | 400mm | 5.6 | 1/640 |ISO800 Exp comp 0 (slight adjustment applied LR). The 7D AF can certainly hold it's on. Processing work involved RAW conversion in LR4 and further enhancements such as curves, sharpening and NR were applied in PS CS6. Canvas was extended at the top and the RHS to balance the image and no cloning was done around the eye or in the FG water. Just a lot of spray and a lot of luck that the spray was away from the eye. I like it but let me know what you think. Now I better get back to finishing or should I say starting my son's first year photo album. The wee man turned one on April 15^th.

Love the action/behavior portrayed by this photo. Like the dichotomy of the every-so-smooth FG water and the crazy water splash/spray. It makes the image that much more captivating. You were lucky to get the duck's eye clear of water. The duck's bill is also a nice focusing point. Glad to see you got around to processing this one.

Striking! I love how you held focus on the duck and still got water splashes that look natural. And the shallow DOF on the water is wonderful!

Excellent low shooting angle. I like great IQ, light & water splashes. TFS

Cheers Marina, Diane and Mohsen and I am happy I stumbled across this again. Have a nice evening.

Jamie:

I have always thought that the water spray in this type of shot really adds a lot to the sense of the moment, of action, and you have captured it well here, as well as being lucky enough to get a clean eye to draw us in. The modest shutter speed worked well here to play up the spray.

Cheers

Randy

Lovely image, really like the POV, well exposed with great soft colours. The slightly slower SS here really did the water splash justice and shows nice movement in the wings.

Crazy splash you got Jamie and it really shows the great chaos of the bath. Great job getting the eye clear and pretty amazing that you were able to.

Very cool. I can kinda see the drops still moving! IQ looks great, and I love the low angle of course. I know you added canvas top and right, but oo bad you did not have even more room at those areas! Still a keeper for sure :-)

Hi Jamie, good low angle, and thats a lot of water being thrown around. Good extension of canvas, and this works for me. Well captured.

I like the low angle, sharpness and water spray. Excellent image Jamie!

A great dynamic situation, congratulations.

Thank you folks, I do like the effect the shutter speed had on the water droplets. Gives it a nice amount of depth and the 7D IQ held up very well in the circumstances.

Thanks everyone and I think I'll revisit some more dusty files this weekend.

Jamie :cheers:

Nice work Jamie, having a darker bottom helps and gives a good platform to the image IMHO, breakout the feather duster and look for more old files. :cheers:

TFS
Steve

Well done to get the bill and eye so sharp and everything else so wonderfully blurred. The flying water perfectly describes how energetic this action was. Excellent image.

Great image, Jamie. The low angle and smooth water/splash contrast is just cool. Reifel is a wonderful place!

Thanks everyone. I agree on the dark bottom Steve, adds way more depth to the image, cheers.