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Whilst photographing Water voles I found these very confiding little grebes on a very heavily wooded canal, hence low shutter speed. Took the camera off the tripod and got down flat using a bean bag. Then waited for the grebe to hit some shafts of light.
Worked on the background slightly by reducing the appearance of the spots.
D300 Sig 500 4.5
ISO 800
1/60s @ 6.3
kind regards.
Stu.
Nice looking back pose. I find those bright white circles somewhat distracting. I would clone them out, if it were mine.
Stuart:
I think the little grebes make great subjects. Good look back pose, rich colors.
I do agree with Karl about cleaning up some of the light spots.
I might also consider a crop up from the bottom to just above the lower row of specular highlights.
Good shooting angle. Well done with this shutter speed.
I will occasionally push the D300 to ISO 1000, but am usually not happy with it unless I can really push the exposure far to the right.
Cheers
Randy
Stuart - I really like the mood you created here. Good call on waiting for the bird to move into a shaft of light. Great angle of the bird with a little look back. I too find the little bright circles a bit distracting but understand that they were a part of the scene so I'm not sure what I would do with them - but I think I would try a version with them removed. None-the-less, a very nice photo!
The low angle and dark BG are really nice however I am not seeing much fine details in the head
Nice low angle, neat dark BG, and I love the texture of the water. I agree the specular highlights would be better gone, a combination of clone, patch, and spot healing tools would work. The body looks sharp but the head is soft (surely caused by subject movement at the low SS you had.)
Thanks for the critiques. I hate having to shoot above 400 on the D300. It might be me but I seem to notice a drop in detail when at 800+ iso?
Had a re-process with all the comments in mind.
kind regards.
Stu.
Hi Stuart like the spotlight effect you have created in the image. Nice low angle and colours. Agree with removing the white spots.
Repost is a nice improvement, Stuart. I love the feather textures and dark BG and like that it has plenty of space in the frame.
Wonderful shot. Great low angle and I really like the dark background as well. Well done.
Thanks again for your critiques. Like the image with the highlights gone much better too.
kind regards.
Stu.
Also have some shots of Litle Grebe, its a lovely specie... the repost its mutch better, the head is more sharp and the BG is more soft...
