Harlequin Drake

[Rachel Hollander]

Taken yesterday morning on what Artie described as the best morning at Bargnegat Jetty on the IPT/Creative Adventure. Artie found the perfect angle for capturing this drake on the rock and then helped all of us who wanted get in position on the very edge of the rocks. Thanks again to Artie and Denise.

Canon 5D3
300 II plus 2x III
1/1600
f8
ISO 400
EC -1.0
HH from rocks, cropped slightly from left and above for comp, levels, curves, selective color adjustment, dodging and burning, NR to bg and sharpened in CS6.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Rachel, looks like you were in greats hands there, but the rest was up to you, and you nailed this nicely. The overall exposure in this is superb, as is the sharpness. Lots of detail and colours to look at, and I do like the angle of the drake and placement in the frame. Looks like he was comfy, and settled there for while.

Interesting using -1 EC on a dark subject.

Edit. Just realised you used a - EC to get the whites right.

[Colin Gilyeat]

Rachele, Very nice. I hope my shot of the Harlequins turns out to be as good as yours. I really like the background in it, not to mention the perch.

Colin

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Stuart and Colin. Stuart - yup, the whites were very tricky. Colin - it was nice meeting you yesterday and I look forward to seeing some of your images.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[PhilCook]

Great angle Rachel, techs look quite good, and such a beautiful looking duck species

[gail bisson]

Hi Rachel,
I like the duck and I love all the little mussels on the rock.
The whites look good everywhere but a bit hot on the face but I think you did a terrific job with the exposure. It looks like these ducks are best photographed on cloudy days!
Love the feather details on the breast and the water in the BG.
Looks like you good some good keepers!
Show us more!
Gail

[Andrew Merwin]

Rachel, a beautiful image of a very colorful duck. I like the BG & the exposure is right on. The perch is really neat & adds another dimension to the image.

[annmpacheco]

Sure is a beautiful boy and beautiful image. Would anyone care to explain/teach the use of -1 EC in this image. I've been gaining on my EC choices but would like to hear from anyone, etc, ... Thanks, Bravo to your trekking out on the big rocks!

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Ann - I shot this one in AV mode but kept checking the histogram for blinkies (blown highlights). It took to -1 to eliminate the blinkies on the highlights warning on the drake. The histograms were tricky because they look skewed to the left (where most of the info is actually located) but a very thin line extended horizontally almost all the way to the right. That line was very difficult to see in the field.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[dankearl]

Terrific, Rachel, nice to see you posting here.
The whites look fine to me.
A very attractive bird in a cool environment.
Very nice!

[annmpacheco]

Thanks Rachel, I'll keep plugging along. Why is the histogram lines so incredibly difficult to see!!! grrrhhhh, anyone have any solutions?

[Tom Rambaut]

Sure is a beautiful boy and beautiful image. Would anyone care to explain/teach the use of -1 EC in this image. I've been gaining on my EC choices but would like to hear from anyone, etc, ... Thanks, Bravo to your trekking out on the big rocks!

The -1 is just a human input to override the cameras metering of what it sees. If you are always trying to expose to the right of the histogram and not clip the whites you will, as in this case, sometimes be forced to subtract light. You can see that this is a dark image with white bits on the bird. At 0 you are going with what the camera thinks is the right exposure, it sees a overall mostly dark image, but in this case this resulted in blinkies or put another way white areas in the image with no detail. Wanting to reduce this clipping you take light away and to stop the clipping of the whites it took -1 to do this. With a static subject as is the case here looking at the histogram/blinkies after one shot has allowed adjustments to be made.

Lovley setting and I Like the space the bird has. Great eye contact

[annmpacheco]

Thank you Tom, appreciate your input. I will keep at it of course!