Mr. Hoody

7D, 1/640, f/6.3. iso 500, 500mm + 1.4 TC.

Taken a few weeks back. Getting him in clean water is a challenge. Hoping the background is not to overpowering.

Thanks for looking and appreciate the comments.

Gary.

Good low angle of capture Gary, and I like the simple swimming pose and visible tail. Comp wise, I would crop away to lose most of the reflection, as seeing more than one eye doesnt work too well.

Hi Gary,

Drake hooded mergansers are so beautiful but they can really be a pain to photograph due to the high contrast of their feather colors. I like the pose and you've nailed the eye nicely but the image misses the mark due to the loss of detail in the most iconic part of the bird; the white-flanking of the crest. Looking forward to seeing more of these beauties, maybe in a little better light. Thanks Gary.

DB

Gary, BG is OK to me. Nice job on the eye. With the body angling away this guy gave you a perfect parallel to the sensor HA. I too would have liked to have seen more deatils in the white crest. Although the blacks look great, exposing for the whites and letting some fill-flash do its work on the blacks instead may have been the way to go.

Gary:

Good input from the guys. Multiple eyes in the reflection, which is pretty common due to ripples, is pretty distracting, so agree about a crop. I think the bigger point is the overall brightness of BG and whites on hood. So, I did a selection on the high lights, and set the blend mode at multiply, and also when back and did a second selection just on the whites in the hood and ran a low %multiply on it too.

You can do better on your raw file, but I think the basic goodness of the image benefits from some tweaking.

Cheers

Randy

Thanks for all the comments.:) Appreciate the time and expertise! Your suggestions were right on, of course. Here is my second try. I am thinking the whites look a little better

All suggestions were really great and I like the repose much better as it really looks excellent as presented.