Buflehead.

[Karl Egressy]

I took this shot later, about 35 minuted before sunset, on Saturday.
I used Highlight/shadow tool only on the head and top of the body to bring out the colours a little more.
(Whites were a little hot on part of the head and lower body that I fixed in RAW. Hard to expose guy.)
Thanks for looking.

Canon 1D MIV
Canon 500 f4.0 L IS
Manual Exposure
ISO 800
1/2000 s
f7.1
Hand held

[Grace Scalzo]

Karl, This is a tough image to critique, but I'll give it a go. As far as composition goes, I think that the tail needs more room on the right hand side. There is so much going on in this image between the beautiful colors of the duck and the vivid water that I think eliminating some of that by coming up from the bottom would be a viable option. I like the little well made by his foot. Despite your processing, I still see hot spots. Double catchlight is making the eye appear soft, so I'd work on that. In all honestly, I'd rather see monotoned water for this duck as he's pretty enough on his own, and I just find this distracting. This is all my opinion, and having said all this, I have not a single image of a male bufflehead in my files, so there.

[Karl Egressy]

Karl, This is a tough image to critique, but I'll give it a go. As far as composition goes, I think that the tail needs more room on the right hand side. There is so much going on in this image between the beautiful colors of the duck and the vivid water that I think eliminating some of that by coming up from the bottom would be a viable option. I like the little well made by his foot. Despite your processing, I still see hot spots. Double catchlight is making the eye appear soft, so I'd work on that. In all honestly, I'd rather see monotoned water for this duck as he's pretty enough on his own, and I just find this distracting. This is all my opinion, and having said all this, I have not a single image of a male bufflehead in my files, so there.

Thanks Grace. You have some good points, thanks.
I'm about to try to process yet an other image of this guy.
I went darker to preserve the white.
The problem, based om experience will be to bring out the nice colours of the head.
Tough subject but it is worth the try. By the way, unfortunately it is impossible to go lower at the places I'm visiting. There are some in Toronto area, but the traffic always dicourages me from going.

[Marina Scarr]

Agree with Grace about the busyness, whites and about taking some off the bottom and adding a little to the right. That said, you did a great job with what you had and I think you can bring the image up another level with a few tweaks.

[Karl Egressy]

Thank you Grace, thank you Marina.
I still don't have detail extractor, but I did what I could; added some canvas to the right, took some off of the bottom, did some linear burn on the whites and lowered the exposure on the white reflection.
I played with blur of the background but it did not do any good.

[Doug Brown]

Good points from Grace and Marina. You picked up the iridescence nicely, but I think you've cooked the whites. Judging by your camera settings, I'm guessing you're a good 2/3 to 1 stop overexposed. When I photograph Bufflehead, I want the tiniest hint of blinkies at most. Sometimes I'll go 1/3 stop below my first blinkies.

[Karl Egressy]

Good points from Grace and Marina. You picked up the iridescence nicely, but I think you've cooked the whites. Judging by your camera settings, I'm guessing you're a good 2/3 to 1 stop overexposed. When I photograph Bufflehead, I want the tiniest hint of blinkies at most. Sometimes I'll go 1/3 stop below my first blinkies.

Thanks Doug, good guess. It takes -2/3 before the red dissapears in Raw.
I changed the setting later and the light got weaker as well.
I might post one where the whites were perfectlyl exposed but the colours were not as vivid as the sun was about to go down.
I just checked; went from 1/2000ec to 1/4000s.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Karl - looks like a tough one to expose and maintain both the whites and the beautiful irridescent colors. You've gotten great advice above.

TFS,
Rachel

[Satish Ranadive]

Beautiful image of handsome bird.Love the iridescence,pose and composition in the repost.
Learned a lot from the discussion.

Regards,
Satish.

[Robert Holguin]

Very nice shot Karl.
I really like the repost better.
Nice pose and great looking water.
I think you did well with this tough subject to photograph.
Well done.