Ice Fishing

[gail bisson]

I posted this a couple of years ago and decided to revisit it for the theme.
This common merganser drake caught this flounder and tried to swallow it while in the water but could not manage it so he climbed onto the ice.
Despite many attempts to swallow it, the fish was too big and he had to swim away from it. A gull quickly flew in and made off with the fish.
Canon 1DX 600mm and 1.4x
ISO 800 F 9.0 SS 1/2500
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Glenn Conlan]

Hit the theme subject perfectly. Nice low angle and exposure. The fish really makes this a winner. Well done Gail

[Karl Egressy]

Interesting story and a great image, Gail.

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice Gail, the ice and the fish make this one for me. I think a tighter crop might be better

TFS

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gail and interesting story and capture.

F/9 seems a bit much, however it hasn't hurt the image and the ISO was oh so low so no big deal. Personally I'm not sure about a tighter crop, although is this FF or a crop, but I would have preferred the continuation of the ice rather than having the FG water, but that's in an ideal world. A luminosity mask specific for the brighter whites helps bring back a bit more in the tonal range and reduces the brighter areas IMHO.

TFS
Steve

[gail bisson]

Hi Steve,
I was at F9 because I wanted to get everything within DOF as this is 95% FF ( had to rotate it slightly so lost a bit of canvas)! I was worried the fish would be soft because the merganser kept flipping the fish left and right and up and down. In this image the fish is pretty much parallel with the drake so I would probably have been OK at a bigger aperture.
Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.
Gail

[Steve Kaluski]

Thanks Gail, yes it does look like things were almost on the same plane of focus, however no problems as all the techs were on your side. If this was on a tripod you could have used the self level in-built into the 1DX, but this is why I like the Uniq ball head.

[Lorant Voros]

Fantastic winter image that for sure tells a story. Lovely exposure as well, great IQ , eye contact and frozen fish. Well done!

[keith mitchell]

Gail not surprised that the bird could not cope with this, bet a flat fish like that takes some swallowing ,you have a top class piece of work with this one.

Keith.

[annmpacheco]

excellent image Gail, glad your dof covered the drama here! wonderful winter scene, love the light and beautiful black details, I can see the hue of green on his head!

[D. Robert Franz]

Great image here that tells a story..

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely image and story. I like the crop as is b/c it tells more of the story. Super capture!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely shot my first reaction was luminosity mask lower the highlights. Other than that I really like it, I would crop a little off the base.

[Bill Dix]

Great winter shot, Gail. Almost looks like he's playing cat-and-mouse with the fish. Aperture and crop both work very well for me. Nicely captured.

[William Dickson]

Love the head position looking down on the fish. Great colours throughout. Nice image Gail.

Will

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the semi frozen fish, exposure, IQ, light and winter setting. Great story and image Gail!

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Wow!!!
Can't be much better than this. Echo all the positives above.
+1 to a crop from the bottom.