Mergansers in flight

[Ken Janes]

The Red-breasted Mergansers have returned to the coast of Maine in the past few days. Dozens more arriving every day.

Canon 5D MK III EF 400mm f/5.6

ISO 400 1/4000 sec @ f/8.0

Handheld

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Ken, nice sharp image and excellent BIF technique to capture the group. Some things to consider are the color balance and the grouping of the birds. The image also seems dark to me and you have plenty of headroom in the whites, so I'm going to say that you could have captured more light. Traditional wisdom says that even numbers of subjects should be avoided, but I kind of like the way the trailing bird fits in the gap. If the birds were spaced out a bit more vertically, so their wings weren't overlapping, the image would be much stronger. I see a magenta cast to the image, not the warm golden light of early morning or late evening, but a color cast. I attempted to correct the colors and also the exposure a bit with a curves adjustment, don't know if it is better or just different... You can do a much better job with the RAW file. What white balance setting did you use in the camera?

[Ken Janes]

Thanks Kerry. I see what you mean about the color cast. I used AWB and it is at 5900K according to LR. For some reason the tint slider is at +20, not sure why that happens.

[Richard Stern]

Hi,

I agree with Kerry and think his re-working is an improvement. However I think the original is superb, and I love the sharpness of the birds and the overall feel of the picture. I wish more of my BIF were that high quality. However, I also agree with one of the comments made in a Gull picture that Daniel Cadieux recently posted to the Avian forum - with BIF, something in the bg to give a sense of depth or context, e.g clouds, or a distant horizon, is better than a plain blue sky.

Richard