Frozen landing

[shane shacaluga]

I am up in Norway at the moment and spent a bit of time each day (until my fingers freeze) taking shots. I have observed the lake freezing over daily and ducks and common gulls are now having problems landing on the ice. At -17C I am having some problems too haha

This drake flew towards the end of the ice patch but had second thoughts before touching down and applied the handbrakes. This is the only frame i got with his head extended which let some light get to it.

D800e
70-300 @ 300mm
f5.6
1/2500
ISO 800

Had to add some canvas at the bottom and clone the darker ice, but still not sure about the composition, Any suggestions?

Usual PP adjustments and selective sharpening on the drake

Thanks for viewing

[Terry Johnson]

Shane, nicely done. How far away were you?

Thanks...Terry Johnson

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks

I was on a pier and they were flying under me. This original frame before resizing for web is over 5000 pixels wide, so on my d800 thats about 20% cropped off with a 300mm lens

[Alan Murphy]

Great detail on the bird. I felt as though the bird was about to land on concrete.

[Bob Pelkey]

A very interesting image, Shane. I think your post processing work you've described was very well done. The clarity of the bird is stunning with exceptional light and color. I would only suggest adding significant noise reduction to the background.

[dankearl]

The bird has a nice 3D look, not sure on the BG, interesting but would not know it was ice unless you mentioned.

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks guys

I have given the repost some more blue saturation and applied some NR although it was more snow dust on the ice than noise itself

Hope this is an improvement

[christopher galeski]

Great capture,magic detail,love the light.TFS.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Interesting perspective, and I like the spread primaries of the near wing. Not too keen on the BG though, which is was not as mottled.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice pose and an interesting POV. I'm with Dan re BG, a bit distracting. I see a bit of noise on the head and darker feathers. , looks like you had to sharpen quite a bit

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks guys

Arash, the duck was quite sharp straight out of the camera but I may have overdone the sharpening as you say. As I mentioned on another post I am always in doubt whether i should sharpen more or not.

Here is a repost with less sharpening and masking off the darker areas to avoid bringing in unnecessary noise

Good PP learning for me so if you can still see noise somewhere please let me know

Thanks