Feather maintenance - Common Loon Preening

[Randy Stout]

This loon was imaged several weeks ago in Northern Michigan. This particular lake is blessed with nice background, with water lilies and other flowers in the reeds along the shore. It is fun to work the birds there to try and get a nice combination of background details and colors.

D4 600 VR f/6.3 1/1000 ISO 800. Shot from the bottom of my little boat

Post: Slight crop for comp. Softened the reflection at bottom of frame. Selective sharpening.

This will be my last loon for a while, as I fear I have over saturated the viewers!

Advice and comments always appreciated.

Cheers

Randy

[Joseph Przybyla]

Lovely image, Randy. Striking black and white. I'm not tired of your Loon images, thank you for sharing.

[gail bisson]

Before I read your comments I immediately thought what a great BG and shoreline you have here Randy.
Nice preening pose and of course, your usual killer POV.
I would get rid of the specular highlights on the bill.
I am not usually bothered by them but they seem quite prominent to me and catch my eye.
Gail

[dankearl]

Cool pose and the BG is the best part. Very attractive.
I would clean up the bird.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks folks:

I toned down some of the highlights on the bill and in the reflection, trying not to lose some of the ribbing and bill texture.

Easier on the eyes?

Randy

[adrian dancy]

The second image is better. I have to be honest and say that whilst this is a good behaviour image it is not a pose that grabs me like many of your others. If this had been front on, it may have grabbed me lots.

[Grace Scalzo]

Hummmmm, kind of torn on this one. The bg colors are pretty and pastel. I would loose the blob in the upper left corner. The beautiful loon colors don't seem to be popping out on his face, and if you loose the hightlights on the bill, you need to loose them on the reflection too. Which speaking of reflections, this one isn't totally clean, nor totally diffuse and I'm just not loving it. Wow, I sound so critical! I apologize. It's just that you have set the bar so very high for yourself. As for saturation with loon images, NEVER!

[Geoffrey Montagu]

In this instance, before I saw your repost and read Gail's comment re the specular highlights on the bill, I was ok with them. What a favorable difference by toning the SH's down. Very much like the preening pose, and how great are the beautiful reflections in water.



Geoffrey

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I don't mind the OP, that's what the light does to wet surfaces, so for me there is usually no need to make it "easy on the eyes".

Love the POV, great pose and BG Randy.

Don't need to stop posting loons mate!

[Karl Egressy]

Nice moment captured, excellent low angle shooting, Randy. Love the pose, water and the repost is an improvement.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks everyone for your honest comments. It is always interesting how we see images differently.

Because I have done a lot of work on loons, I am always looking for something a bit different, trying to portray the less common aspects. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't! But I will keep at it!

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Randy, Super preening pose with the bill 'tucked' into the plumage. I really like the reflection of water across the head, and as always great exposure throughout. Isnt it ideal to have a pleasing BG at your favourite location. I dont mind your OP as is, but the head in your repost looks sharper.