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Thread: Drake Northern Shoveler

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Default Drake Northern Shoveler

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    Caught this guy at my local beach estuary last winter. I sure like the colors on a mature Drake Shoveler. He gave me some nice eye contact.

    1DMKIV---700mm---f5.6---ISO640---HH@8:15am---30%crop

    Thanks as always for looking and for your input. Appreciated

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    Unbelievable colours David. Very nice capture- not an easy one I know! I like all aspects of the image except that I think the whites on the side of the body need to be toned down. This can be done easily at the raw development stage.

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    Nice clarity, details, and sharpness! I wish this image of a Shoveler in flight is mine. I would also think about working on the bright whites a bit. I think the details are still there by the looks of it.

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    Forum Participant christopher galeski's Avatar
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    nice flight capture,like the colors,like the detail on the bill showing the water,agree on working on the whites.

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    Sharp and well timed, the light is excellent David...except for the hot area behind the neck, love the way the light hits the bill....looks like he's been to the shoe/bill shine boy

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Default Re-post

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    Thanks everyone for the comments.
    These Drake Shovelers are real tricky to expose properly, even sitting on the ground. A small change in the flight angle can change the lighting instantly and have a over or under exposed area in the shot.
    I actually shoot these guys just a hare over exposed. Just a tiny bit of blinkies on the highlight alert is about perfect to get good color and detail on the rest of him. Then normally you can bring down the highlighted area, and it looks good.
    If you expose mainly for the white, the rest will be pretty under exposed and getting good clarity and detail will be harder.
    For birds like these and others that have a bright white area on a fairly dark or varied body, there isnt a perfect exposure. I wish the duck would freeze long enough for me to bracket and HDR him but thats not happening.
    This shot had a little more of the white blown than I like and I had worked it in PP but thought it looked too grey, as overexposed areas that are fried look after being repaired with most methods. Here is the one I was going to post before I changed my mind.
    Dose it look better than the one that is whiter with less detail. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

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    Macro and Flora Moderator Jonathan Ashton's Avatar
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    Beautiful shot, I like both images, I appreciate the problems you experienced. I would be tempted to go back to raw and try some more settings, maybe reduce the exposure a tad, then consider the whites and highlights, it is a super shot and well worth spending time on.

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    Forum Participant Joe Senzatimore's Avatar
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    One fine image. The only fault it has is that it's not mine!!! Color is amazing.

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    David,
    Magnificent flight shot with nice lights, beautiful colors,BG and composition.

    Regards,
    Satish.

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    David this is so so good, fantastic colours and sharpness wow, love it.

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    Lifetime Member Stu Bowie's Avatar
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    Hi David, I understand the problem of whites changing in a sequence of shots - had it plenty. You have to experiment with angles, and I find shooting as the subject approaches you works best, and of course, Ive had excellent results on whites when the subject is passed me. You seem to be nailing these guys, and this flight pose shows off the colours so well. Love the water on the large bill. The whites look better in your OP.

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    BPN Member vishaljadhav's Avatar
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    Lovely image here, the flight is nicely captured
    i like the colours and perfect action, good HA too

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    Lifetime Member gail bisson's Avatar
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    I like everything about this except the blown whites.
    I don't see much difference in the repost. Maybe clone in some feathers?
    HA is really good.
    When I was in Nome, Matthew kept preaching "expose for the whites and bring up the blacks in PP". Well, I took his advice to heart and when I got home and uploaded my shots I nearly had a stroke because every image taken on a dark rainy day at ISO 1600 looked way underexposed. I did my PP in LR4 and raised the exposure by .5 to .75 on a lot of my images and I wasn't thrilled with the way they looked so I started from scratch and used DPP to process the RAW. What a difference! I feel that raising the exposure in DPP and using the shadows slider did not introduce nearly as much noise as LR4. Just something to chew on!
    Gail

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    BPN Member dankearl's Avatar
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    Sharp as a tack and cool flight image of a duck not captured often in flight.
    I have got so that I don't even try to shoot a lot of ducks (the shoveler is one), in sunshine, even early morning light.
    A nightmare to expose right, for flight, this is about as good as I have seen.

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Thanks everyone for the input and suggestions. Appreciated.

    Stuart, Im glad you can relate to these issues.

    Gail, Thanks for the info. I also us DPP and like the results I get. I will try the increasing exposure and shadows.

    Dan, thanks for the comment and the fact that you know the challange of shooting these guys in flight.

    David

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    What a beautiful duck! I've had no luck even getting this species on the water, so I am easily impressed with a fine flight capture like this. Excellent image David.

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