What broke my heart on this one was that had I had calm wind conditions, his reflection would have been perfect. I set up for that by turning the camera vertical, but not once did the water smooth enough for the reflection. This therefore is a crop cutting off the somewhat garbled reflection--which didn't look real bad--but this is more powerful I think.
What I like most about this shot is that his back feathers are showing green and purple colors in addition to the blue you normally see cause of the light.(I guess)
MarkII 600 f/4 1/400@f/9 Iso 400
Paul
10-21-2009, 10:23 PM
Harshad Barve
Absolute stunner , lovely compo , expo and mood here , loved those feathers showing great colors
TFS
10-22-2009, 02:00 AM
Stu Bowie
Pin sharp detail Paul, and I like the look back pose. Great BG. I would move him to the right in the frame. Apart from that, well captured
10-22-2009, 04:55 AM
Daniel Cadieux
Stuart, don't you mean LEFT of the frame? This guy already has plenty of space to "look" into- I like the crop as presented. Neat perch, and I love the water at bottom. Great low angle too. I kinda wish the light was more even of the face, but still quite appealing as is.
10-22-2009, 05:16 AM
paul leverington
Hey Danny--I'd bet if the light were more even on him, those colors would not have shown up as they did. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I can't ever recall seeing them like that in any of my other pictures. Side light definitely defines feather detail better too. I processed this one quite a long time ago, so your comment makes me think that I could(should) go back and reprocess, and bring the darker side up some with shadow-highlight--which was not available at the time. Hmmmmm.. Good spot bro.
I'd like to hear what others think about a crop off the left as I actually cropped some off the version I have been presenting in the past. Maybe a little more?
Gong back to this shot for a while getting it ready to post has certainly made me appreciate the quality of the mark III over the MarkII. I am so looking forward to the Mar IV at 16 MP, 14 bit, better noise and dynamic range.
I forgot to mention that I took this using my cadillac soup deville floating blind.
Paul
10-22-2009, 07:17 AM
Raymond Barlow
I like this crop Paul, and the bg really looks sweet, nice pose, but I would clone out what looks like a dust spot to the right of the birds tail feathers.
10-22-2009, 08:24 AM
Connie Mier
Lovely colors and the low angle is a bonus, excellent job. Too bad for the wind, because the reflection would be a stunner!
10-22-2009, 08:35 AM
Kiran Poonacha
loved the colours here, nice pose and light too, a personal choice would be to clone out the OOF branch, But loved the image, congrats...
10-22-2009, 09:15 AM
Keith Bauer
Very nice image. Great capture of the colors. I would NOT move him to the right. I think the composition is fine as is.
10-22-2009, 09:39 AM
david cramer
Beautiful detail and color. Perhaps try a square crop and keep him in the center.
10-22-2009, 09:40 AM
Jackie Schuknecht
Beautiful image w/o the reflection. Love the fluffed up feathers and the colours. Really sharp too.
10-22-2009, 08:13 PM
Randy Stout
Paul:
Nicely composed. Like the curved leading line of the perch on the right, pulls your eye in towards the duck.
On my monitor, the picture is a bit over saturated, based on the redness of the eye and beak. The sharpening is right on the ragged edge for my tastes. Fascinating about the purple feathers. You see it in the head of course all the time, but I haven't seen it like this before.
You asked me on a previous post what browser I use. Safari.
Cheers
Randy
10-23-2009, 08:27 AM
paul leverington
Randy--I think you right on both accounts. I should not have sharpened the jpg at all--whichs means the tiff is oversharpened. The saturation could use a little pulling back on too. On the browser just wanted to make sure you were using color managed type.
Hey David--It's pretty close to square as is--do you think a more exact square crop would make that much difference?
I'm with ya Keith.
Kiran I see your point and that might improve, but is more than I would like to do. If it were a picture killer--which it is not--I would do it. Also-The fact is --nature-- is not perfect--in fact it needs to be not perfect to function even--so nowadays too perfect just rings untrue to my deeper inner self. Sterile shots often look void of the chaos subconsciously I know is supposed to be there.
Connie--You can just see it can't you! Oh well next time maybe.
