Shellduck in flight

[Iain Barker]

I have been trying to capture some of the ducks at my local reserve in flight usually without much success as they are so fast.
This is one of my best attempts so far.

Nikon D7000 300mm f4 AF. 1/1000 sec f4 ISO 800, Hand held, Manual metering.

Crop, levels and sharpening in Lightroom.

All comments are welcome.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice incoming shot, Iain. I would try to open up the darker areas especially the eye/head.

[Iain Barker]

Hi Karl

Thanks for the comments.
Do you have any suggestions on the best way to work on the head? Would you use a blending layer in Photoshop?

Iain

[Diane Miller]

Opening up the darks should be done in the RAW conversion as much as possible, then maybe fine-tuned in PS. Once a file is rasterized in PS, the darks are what they are -- like a JPEG. You can pull out a little more but nothing like you can in the RAW converter.

[Iain Barker]

Thanks Diane

I'll try to get more detail at the raw stage in future.