Hooded Merganser

[Miguel Palaviccini]

A little break from my shots taken at Estero Lagoon. This one was taken a couple of days back at my local pond. The Hoodies don't let you get close (in fact, they swim to the complete opposite side of the pond). It's important to settle down and be patient, and that's what I did for this shot. It's still a heavy crop, but I thought the IQ was pretty good.

For a larger size, see here.

Shooting Info:
Nikon D800 | 500 f/4 VR | 1.4x
1/800" | f/5.6 | ISO 640

Comments, critiques, and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

[Randy Stout]

Miguel:

The D800 has helped you again, as the IQ held up pretty well to the crop. NIce that he had his tail up, so often flat on the water.

The distorted reflection with multiple eyes is always a challenge as far as what to do. I tend to crop up from the bottom to eliminate it, or occ. will burn it in a bit so it is darker and not quite so prominent. The image is also a bit bright for my tastes.

In the repost, I cropped as mentioned and ran a luminosity layer with blend mode at 56% multiply. I overdid it just a bit to show the effect, you can season to taste. The whites on the front of the crest patch and on the breast are hot, and I could not recover them from the jpg.

Cheers

Randy

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Thanks for the repost Randy. I seem to always have my images a bit bright, and I'm not sure why. I also seem to like the repost that's always a bit darker ... maybe I should darken just a bit?!

I hadn't even noticed the double eye reflection, thank you for pointing that out.

[PhilCook]

Repost looks better in the whites I think, but prefer the original crop..stunning bird and such a lovely sheen to the water

[gail bisson]

Hi Miguel,
A bird I have yet to get close to!
IQ still good despite the big crop.
I would prefer a crop from the bottom that just takes out the extra eye reflection.
Lots of nice pop to this image, good contrast as well. The whites look grey as though you have done a lot of recovery on them?
Gail

[Sidharth Kodikal]

What a great image Miguel. This is such a cool species that I hope to photograph some day.
+1 to Randy's feedback and his repost. The IQ has indeed held up very nicely.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm with Phil in liking the reposts darker brightness but prefering the original crop. How nice of this fella to make a swim-by for you...

[Raymond Lee]

The shot is nicely composed I actually prefer the original shot over Randy's version (sorry Randy). However, I would tone down the brightness on the blacks and hopefully recover the whites. I'm also finding a bit of cyan-green on the blacks, may be desaturate the colours a bit.

[Randy Stout]

The shot is nicely composed I actually prefer the original shot over Randy's version (sorry Randy)

Raymond - no probem. I would prefer more below, but didn't like the multiple eyes. Perhaps Gail's idea to just crop above the extra eye reflection would be a good compromise.

Sometimes pano mania takes over (too many loons!)

Randy

[Arno Ellmer]

Great capture, Miguel. All has been said.I like the last reworked image from Randy the best.

[Satish Ranadive]

Miguel:
Excellent image.I like the last repost by Randy.Nice looking bird with nice colors.
Rest is already mentioned above.

Regards,
Satish.

[David Salem]

Great shot of one of my favorite ducks. Wonderful detail for a large crop. The last re-post is perfect. Very nice.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Miguel, well exposed on this fellow, and love the colours of the water. Low angle works, and I like what Randy did in pane #2.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Thanks for the comments guys, and thank you Randy for taking the time to do a couple of reposts. I do like the last post you had the best, and will try to recover some of the highlights.

With that said, is there a preferred method to recover the highlights. I use LR4 and would bring the exposure down a tad (since it's bright to begin with - I was trying to get the whites on the right edge of the histogram when shooting). Then I would use the Highlights and White sliders and move them to the left. I noticed that while this brought back some detail, it also greyed out the whites. Should I only adjust a bit and then bring it into Photoshop and try a linear burn? Detail Extractor? If anyone is interested, I'm posting the original RAW (DNG) so that you guys can go at it. I think it might be a very educational experience (at least for me).

[Randy Stout]

Miguel:

I spent a few minutes working on your DNG. I am sorry to say, there is just no detail in the anterior portion of the white patch on the crest. I tried multiple techs, two conversions( one for whites & one for everything else), linear burn, etc., but there just isn't any data there.

You could clone in some texture from the back part of the patch if you wanted to. That would seem to be the best bet at this point.

The original was sig. overexposed. I went to -1.65 on exposure just to get the blinkies to calm down.

Cheers

Randy

[Raymond Lee]

Hi Miguel,

Here's my version of your above photo. I adjusted the curve to readjust the overall exposure. I desaturated the cyan and green in the blacks. Finally, the whites in the crest, I selected the area, then fill the no detail area with content aware then further play around with the pattern such that it matched the shape of the crest.



Hope you like this one.

Regards,
Raymond