Goosander Portrait

Canon 5D Mk3
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/6.3
1/2500
ISO 800

This is another from my time at the lochside. I was real lucky they came so close, as they are real scary birds at my part of the world, my camouflage must work :S3:

This is the male goosander, the last post was the female.

Thanks for looking and for the comments/views on the last goosander image.

Will

You are lucky indeed to get close, these guys are very skittish here too (but we call them Common Mergansers). I like the proportion of the bird's size in the frame, but I do wish it was higher within it. Focus and details look OK, but there is a fair amount of noise that has crept into your image - not sure if that was due to a large crop, or some shadow recovery, or a combination of both?

Thanks for that Daniel. It would be due to shadow recovery, the bird was under exposed. My camera was set for other subjects, when they arrived from the side of me and I never saw them coming.

Will

Thanks for replying Will. It would be worth running some NR in those areas, but careful not to overdo it. BTW, I meant to add that I like the water beads on the goosander - neat!

I love the low angle and the sweet light, the water drops add to the image as well.

the image is surprisingly noisy for a 5D3 and low ISO, most likely it is from non-optimal processing during shadow recovery

TFS

Hi Will,

What a striking portrait! Love the serration detail on the bill and the water drops on the head.

I agree with Daniel that it could be a bit higher in the frame, but can also see this resolved perhaps by cropping a bit off the top?

Thanks for sharing this beauty Will :)

Ross

Hi Will, what a great eye level capture, and I do like the greens on the head. Great detail showing on the red bill, and the large droplets take this up a few more notches. Great portrait Will.

Nits covered Will, it's great that you where able to get this close to get such a fine portrait.

Keith.

NR already covered, otherwise this is a very good portrait of a bird not easy to get in close.

I like the colours you've got off him and the beads of water on the head, but particularly I think the little bow wave adds something extra.

Mike

A very striking image Will - well caught, I think it would be worthwhile doing another conversion and increasing the noise reduction a little then re-evaluate in Photoshop, maybe even a tad more there in the shadows.

Thanks for the comments and advice guys. I will rework the original RAW file.

Much appreciated

Will

Nice capture the water drops and colors are special.

Excellent portrait. All has been said.

Regards,
Satish.

Would do for me Will. Water drops make it.
John