Mallard ducklings and mom

[Wendy Kates]

Canon Rebel Tsi, 300mm f/4 lens with 1.4 extender, ISO 200, f5.6, 1/1000, Induro tripod with Vanguard ball head, morning light

Hi all,

I'd appreciate your advice on this photo. When I got it onto my computer, I realized that the ducklings in the background were a little OOF, and that I should have stopped down (perhaps to f8.0?) to get all of ducklings in focus. So I want to go back to the pond soon and re-shoot them, before they get much bigger. (They are really cute, aren't they?) But their mom keeps them in a relatively shady, protected part of the pond, so I will need to go when the sun is relatively high, to get enough light to shoot at a higher f stop. I'm concerned that highlights will get blown. Any advice on exposure to balance all of this?

Also, there are a couple of hotspots, fringed in red, that I see often when I shoot waterfowl at this pond. For example, there is a little white spot in the mom's eye. I don't understand why I'm getting the red fringe around the white spot, what I should do to avoid it, or what post-processing to do to remove it. So I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this issue too.

Thanks,
Wendy

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Wendy,

Love the babies they are adorable first considering leveling the image - they are swimming uphill and this causes the frame to be out of balance. Regarding exposure techs the picture looks a bit underexposed - what does the histogram say - did you clip on the left side. The hot spot in the mom's eye is the catch light and it has no detail, do not set the exposure for the catch light, set it for the brightest part of the subject looks to be the bright section on the neck, you protected the brights well - maybe too much. Check the histogram, data should be distributed among all five stops and the f/8 is a smart move to expand the DoF.

Go back, set to f/8 practice a bit and get the histogram right, level the shot and post again - we will go from there.

Regarding post processing - tell us more about your workflow and post applications. For example, I use LRiii to set the crop, adjust exposure and add color temp and fill light if needed,.than I export as a TIFF to CS5 when I go through a workflow for things like-->curves, levels, clone, NR, size, sharpen and save as JPEG.

[P-A. Fortin]

I actually would not mind some of the duckling being a bit out of focus if the front ones were sharper. So indeed, stopping down to f/8 or lower would make it better.

I definitely agree with Jeff about leveling the image and about the image being underexposed. If you have the chance of going back there again, I'd suggest setting the ISO to 400 to give you more freedom on the aperture and shutter speed. I do not know the T2i but I'm pretty sure it can handle ISO 400 very easily.

[Kerry Perkins]

Wendy, your thinking about exposure is going in the wrong direction. The shade is not your enemy, the harsh sun of mid-day is much worse! The light you had to work with in this image is actually pretty nice. The problem is that mom was turned a bit to her right, so most of her is in shadow. You need soft, even illumination for the best results. I highly recommend the "double bubble" level that you put in the hot shoe of your camera body. It lets you level your whole rig very quickly, and can be taken out to put a flash unit on if necessary. It looks like you were looking at the ducks to determine the level here and not the water.

The red fringing you are seeing is a result of a "specular highlight", in which intense light is reflected from a mirror-like surface (there is another one directly below the mom's eye at the water line). There is not much you can do about them but they can be fixed in PS or other editing software. You will not gain much depth of field by stopping down to f/8, as DOF is diminished by magnification. As an example, the difference between DOF at f/5.6 and f/8 with your camera body and 420mm is only 1.6 inches, with the total being 5 inches. If your subjects were closer than that it would be even less. Best strategy is to "get your ducks in a row" and try to get shots when they are in a nice line in front of you, all at a similar distance. I know, easy to say... The key is to keep practicing, post your images here, and don't get discouraged!

[Bob Miller]

Hi wendy....I actually like your shot as is. You have good focus on the mommy duck and the little ones being slightly out of focus is OK in my book, but then I like selective focus. The only thing i think you really need is to level the shot out. You could bring out a bit more detail in the mother duck and shadows with shadow- highlight control in PS. I agree with kerry that F8 doesn't get you more than an inch or two of dof at your magnification. The only thing you can do is to get more light on the subject and to shoot from a vantage point that is as parallel to the subject as you can. ....try to have the camera plane parallel to your subject for greatest dof.