Tufted Duck - What would you alter

[Simon Wantling]

Hi, hope you don't mind me posting this here. In my quest to continually improve my images, I would be very interested to know what if anything you would change on the image of this Tufted Duck. I'm not entirely sure on the crop and whether I should lose any space on the left hand side. Any comments and suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

Canon 7D, 100-400, ISO640, 1/800ss, f7.1

[Ian Cassell]

Hi Simon,

I like this image of a duck that I don't know. I'm reluctant to suggest this (I'm looking at your image on my crummy monitor at work), but are the whites on the wing a bit hot? My only other suggestion would be to crop some of the FG off moving the bird down a bit in the frame and take a bit off the viewers left (but leave enough space to give him room to swim in to and not place him in the center). Here is an approximation of what I'm thinking (done on a sub-optimal editor I have available to me today). WDYT?

[John Chardine]

This is the place to be Simon!!!! Ducks are a problem as they are "long and thin" and many reasonable crop options end up looking like "panos", which is not necessarily a bad thing. I like what Ian has done but I think some more off the top would work.

I love photographing ducks and look for situations where the water is reflecting dark tones rather than light tones from the sky. For this I will position myself and wait for the target to move into position.

The only other thing I would say here is that the image has a greenish tone which I removed in LAB colour by adjusting the A channel. The result gives a little warmer tone to the image.

[Ian McHenry]

Hi Simon
As an expat Scot I am familiar with this duck but quite some time ago.
As I recall the head appears black although a bit irideescent.
To try to achieve this I used the white eyedropper in levels to a patch of white and then quite a bit of darkening of highlights.
Cheers: Ian Mc

[Marina Scarr]

Very nice capture/pose, Simon. After reviewing numerous images of this duck and taking it into PS, it is looking as though the most recent RP looks the most accurate. So far my fav crop is in the final RP, but I think I'd experiment just a tad more with taking a bit more off of the top and bottom and left.

[P-A. Fortin]

Lots of possibilities indeed, but I also favor the last composition.

[Kerry Perkins]

Simon, we welcome your postings here, please feel free! To my eye, the biggest issue with the image is the strong yellow/green color cast. I adjusted the color a bit in PS, using the color balance adjustment which seems to be overlooked by many. I may have gone too far with the blue for the actual shooting conditions, but I think you see what I am getting at. I also added a touch of USM. Agree with thoughts about a tighter crop, but nice capture of this duck - similar to our ring-necked duck. Good capture of the female, looking forward to more.

[Marina Scarr]

Kerry, I think you nailed the color balance. Agree about color balance often being overlooked and what a great tool to adjust color casts. I learned to use it by playing with it on various pictures so that I could see what the sliders revealed.

[John Chardine]

Kerry's is bluer than my version above and I like it too. In my opinion, colour balance is best adjusted in RAW processing rather than in post and if you have to do it later, I find using LAB colour space the best. I will give Color balance a try and see if I can break it!

[Simon Wantling]

Hi all,

Thanks so much for all the replies and the comments are really appreciated. There are a few versions posted and I tend to agree with the final comments regarding the colour balance. I did go out today under different conditions and had another crack at photographing her. Hopefully you'll like this version which is different to the original posting.

7D, 100-400, 1/1000ss, f5.6, ISO800. Post processed in Lightroom 4 and PSE10. Some noise reduction and USM 0.5, 90

thanks again.

[John Chardine]

Well done Simon. Beautiful light.