Bufflehead

[John Stuelpnagel]

Here is a male bufflehead taken a couple of weeks ago. I find them a challenge because of the bright whites and the dark rest of the head that tends to hide the colors. When I took the image, I reduced the exposure by 2/3 to avoid blowing out the whites. I processed this image with DPP (reducing highlights and boosting shadows), and Photoshop CC. In a Dodge and Burn adjustment layer, I added a small amount of white to the colored parts of the head and a small amount of black to the white part of the head. I appreciate all comments, critiques and suggestions. Thanks!

1DX, 600mm+1.4X
Manual, ISO 800, f/7.1, 1/4000

[Don Lacy]

HI John, Nice wing position with plenty of detail and I like how low he is agaisnt the water.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Hi John, you've captured this gorgeous bird with a great wing position flying low over beautiful water. The iridescence on the head shows nicely.
The whites on the shoulder look a tad grey/dull on my monitor. Wonder if it's from burning/pulling down exp in post.
There's also a tad bit of noise on the underside of the far wing.
It's not often that one sees a bufflehead in flight (much less captures it), and for that reason, I'd reprocess this image from RAW with some TLC if it were mine (I wish). Hope you don't mind my honest critique, but I do think this image and species is worth the attention.

[Arthur Morris]

A beautiful flight pose and I love that the bird was angling towards you. And I like that the darkest water is in the perfect spot in the frame. Do you have more of the original frame below the bird?

[adrian dancy]

I'm in broad agreement with Sidharth,and with Art regarding composition.

[John Stuelpnagel]

Thank you Don, Sidharth, Artie and Adrian for your comments. To address some of the suggestions by Sidharth and Artie, I reprocessed the image. This time I cropped it in the vertical direction to capture (or at least show) all of the original image below the bird. Also, I performed noise reduction (using Neat and Arash's / Artie's guide) on the bird layer, something that I have been reluctant to try as I was worried about loss of detail on the bird. To my eye, the noise reduction seemed to help with the noise under the wing. I don't know if I like the vertical crop better than the horizontal. I would be interested in other's opinions. Here is the repost...

[catalani giovanni]

beautiful moment caught

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the pose and the dark water. I like the full reflection of the repost, and although it works remarkably better than I would have thought as a vertical I'd love to see that full reflection on an horizontal.

[Marina Scarr]

Absolutely terrific flight pose on this one and this water makes a great back drop. First crop works for me. The processing on the bird's shoulder looks odd to me...a grey color.