I took this image yesterday shortly before it started pouring. I try to shoot at 1/2000 from my kayak but it was dark so I had to shoot at 1/500 (5.6 wide open) at iso 3200, which is as high as I have ever shot wildlife. A lot of this image was even underexposed so I would not blowout the highlights. I was quite happy with the cleanliness of my D800.
I applied noise reduction on the bg and sharpened the loon.
Very nice natural setting,; lovely iridescence on the head, and good head turn. Pretty amazing not to have noise at 3200 ISO when underexposed. Well done to you and the D800.
Really like the colors and would love to shoot one of these myself! Wish my D300s could pull of ISO 3200 like this! Good work from a kayak also. Seems to be some sort of artifact above the Loons head along the bank. Was there something cloned out or edited here? Didn't really notice it at first but it does look a little odd.
It's not often we see a loon in the water so close to the shore, for that I like this image. The loon's back looks great, but the head and neck are suffering from lots of colour noise and perhaps too much saturation. I too see some odd things going on along the top of the frame...
loon by shore
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