Mudpuppy for dinner - common loon

[Randy Stout]

This image was created last August on a northern Michigan lake. The adults were losing their breeding plumage, but I still enjoy hanging out with them. They fairly frequently will catch mudpuppies, but it can be a struggle for them to swallow one.

D4 600VR f/6.3 1/800s Fill flash with beamer . Pedestal mounted in the bottom of my little boat, Loonie Too!

Post: 20% crop for comp. cleaned up a few specular reflections. Pulled down the blue channel saturation to help reduce the reflections off the water on the head. Eye is as shot, no manipulation at all.

Advice and comments always appreciated.

Cheers

Randy

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Nice loon and great to see the catch!
I like the idea of a pana crop for this one and the sharp eye. I find the back of the bird a tad bright, may be some dodging there would work?

[Randy Stout]

Juan:

Thanks for the comments. As they molt, they lose the dark black coloration, and get lighter and somewhat more brown, so I left the back as is. I may try toning down the luminosity a bit, so thanks for your input!

Cheers

Randy

[adrian dancy]

Everything looks fine to me and as expected for the light. A fine catch for you and the bird. Did you manage an image with the head raised? I imagine at 1/800sec it may have been difficult to get sharp once movement starts and when things can start going wrong.

fine image.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent catch both by loon and you. Beautiful HA, nice water droplets, low shooting angle and composition.
Love the frame, Randy Sir.

Regards,
Satish.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Super shot Randy, I like the composition, action and pose. The feathers are obviously pretty wet so it is inevitable that the plumage has caught the flash a little but I think your suggestion re luminosity will pretty well fix that. I really do like these loons - great stuff!

[Randy Stout]

Thanks folks! I thought some more about Juan's comment about the brightness of the back, and looked at the image again this AM. I have done a second version with the luminosity of the back toned down to match the head. I do like it better.

Thanks for the input!

Cheers

Randy

[Jonathan Ashton]

Yes Randy better I agree but I am not sure about the periphery of the bird, it looks very hard - did you refine mask when reducing luminosity?

[Randy Stout]

Jon:

Thanks for the perceptive observation. I didn't refine the mask. Have subsequently given if a bit of soften, to reduce the 'cut out' look. Appreciate your thoughts.

Cheers

Randy

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Randy , neat shot of the loon with nice color/detail . The catch is a very nice bonus.
RP is an improvement , but the critical HL are still blown in all three channels .I think starting from raw could avoid this.
TFS Andreas

[Randy Stout]

Andreas:

No blown channels in the raw conversion, but in checking the jpeg, you are of course correct, all three are slightly blown. It took only -.08 of a stop to eliminate all the blown pixels. Thanks for your observation.

Cheers

Randy

[Sandy Witvoet]

Cool image Randy... RP is much better. Great and unusual feeding capture. Especially in this "pre-molt" stage. Hoping they give you some nice ops yet this Summer.