Wigeon feeding

[Iain Barker]

Finally manged so spare time to get out in some dry weather.
Here is my first image of a feeding Wigeon.
I always struggle getting the eye to show on dark headed birds.

Nikon D7000 300mm f4 AF 1/1000 f4 ISO500. Levels and slight crop in Lightroom. Some distracting spots on the water removed and a bit of dodging on the eye in Photoshop.

ALL C&C welcome.

[Henry Domke]

Nice to see the bird swimming ahead with it's head low in the water.

I believe the key thing you can do to improve the image is to brighten it. I've reworked the right half of the image and left the left half alone so you can easily do an A:B comparison.
The only thing with brightening it is that the bright feathers on the tail will blow out. I've done a slight amount of masking to protect that area.

I hope you don't mind me reworking it but I thought it would be better to show you than just describe it with words.

[Iain Barker]

Thanks Henry I don't mind you reworking it at all.
I didn't realise my original image was so dark. I'll look at brightening it.

Sent from my GT-I8190N using Tapatalk

[Daniel Cadieux]

I was going to suggest that the image is dark as posted, and Henry has demonstrated it pretty well. I like the skimming pose and details, and the smooth surface of the water. This would have been great with the head angled slightly towards us rather than away.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice details. good critique by Henry and ditto Dan re HA.

thanks for sharing

[Iain Barker]

Not much I can do about the head angles now but here is a repost with some further adjustments to the levels.

Thanks for all the comments so far.

[Bill Dix]

I like the feeding pose. Repost really helps. HA noted.