Shoveller hen dabbling

40D. 4005f.6L at f/6.3. iso400. 1/1600s.

I had tried to capture this typical Shoveller pose before but had never got the super low angle...which I feel is very important for the shot to work. Got one finally. All C&C welcome and appreciated.

superb shot KD. we have many of them here already but too far :).. liked the low angle with half beak in water. some compression issue in bg showing patches u might want to consider it.

Kaus, I can see why you are over the moon with this image. Excellent low perspective, and I like the 'drinking' behaviour. Those colours are simply stunning, and show up so well on the calm water. If this were mine, I would maybe take a bit off the top. Well captured - I like this lots.

Awesome background and pose KD. Very nice image.

Great angle KD, loved the pose and the colours in the water make this work well.. nicely done

I like the low angle, detail and cleaness of this beauty. Well done Kaustubh!

Way to go KD! I like this alot...great low angle, and drinking pose. Love the drop falling off the bill. Killer BG too and its seemless merge with the water.

Terrific work again, Kaustubh. The low angle work so well as do the gorgeous colors of the water and the bg.
The pose is killer with that drop falling off. Excellent composition too.
I would experiment with removing the highlights below the neck where the body meets water.
Do you do any NR on the bg, or is the 40D that clean?
Very well done. Thanks for sharing.

Thx. everyone.

Sidharth, for this one I did some NR(strength 4 in photoshop elements) on the BG. two reasons

(a) I didn't expose this to the right a lot. Needed SS to freeze the pose. exp. comp is 0 here. over evaluative metering.
(b) I am also experimenting with the new USM feature in DPP which gives more sharpness but at the expense of a little extra noise.

Typically, 40D is quite clean at iso400 if exposed properly. at 100%, some noise is seen..more in dark areas of course...but not a lot...and it is not an issue when resized(for this same shot resized to 800-pixels-wide, I did not need any NR) or printed...even big. ISO 320 is what I use when light is good and SS requirement is met. I have many shots at iso640 that look noisy at 100% but dont after resizing or printing. From whatever I've read, that is true for all Canon aps-c bodies. If you dont want noise at high ISOs in dark areas at 100% view, no option other than going for the expensive bodies like 5D series and 1D series.

Sidharth,

here is the same image resized to 800-pixel wide. No NR on BG done. I'll try to post 100% crop some time for you.

Attachment 83146
http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...isc/pencil.png

Thanks a bunch, Kaustubh, for the detailed reply and the follow up.
You are right, at 800, it looks practically as clean as the OP.
I have often been disappointed by the noise in my 50D, especially with darker BGs and when exposing to the right is not possible. I need to take the time to learn some NR techniques to include in my workflow.
Thanks again.

Great work KD, love the soft BG and the dipping pose, the drop of water under the bill/neck is a nice touch. A wonderful image overall mate. :)

Sidharth, there are various NR softwares available. I reduce Chroma noise in DDP itself but never the Luminance noise...as that causes loss of detail. I dont underexpose or shoot at such high ISOs where the noise in bird would be bothersome. From BG, reducing noise is easy. Check the refine-edge tutorial in educational resources forum. I use that to select BG. Then I use a simple NR in photoshop elements(as I dont have photoshop cs version). It gets the job done most of the times. Best to do NR after resizing. If I feel the need to reduce noise in the entire image, I use Neatimage.

As I said earlier, from what I have read, noise at 100% view at high ISOs(640 and above) in darker regions is an issue with all 40D, 50D and 7D. Lot of people complain more about 50D than the other two but I cant comment as I have never used 50D or 7D....or their expensive cousins :-)

Kaustubh, thanks a bunch for the NR tips. I will play with the soon. Hopefully I can salvage some of mine that were headed for the trash bin.
I'll post the results of my experiments. Thanks again!

KD,

This is a sublime image of one of my favorite ducks. The mottling on the bill of this hen is beautiful and the water and background are perfect. The duck has a beautiful softness that you have nailed. Great image, my friend.

DB

My favorite as is!

The image is just perfect, like Sidharth said, I also experiment removing the highlights below the neck...