Hooded Merganser

[Jim Crosswell]

This was taken at a local marina this past weekend. All C&Cs are welcome and appreciated.

Canon 1D MK IV
500L f4
1.4 Extender
ISO 800
1/2500s
f5.6
Handheld by semi frozen fingers

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Jim, lovely low perspective, and its cool that we can see the legs below the water. That eye really stands out against the darker plumage. I would try and extract some more detail from the blacks if possible.

[Jim Crosswell]

Thanks Stu. I will give it another go but the black area on the body of this duck is like velvet.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice head turn. The repost shows more details in the black which makes it look better, Jim.

[adrian dancy]

A good pose and head turn with this stunning bird. Nice water too. Given the shutter speed I might have expected a bit more detail in the birds plumage. I don't know if you ran some NR on the bird?

[Jim Crosswell]

Thanks Karl and Adrian for the feedback. Adrian this is just over 50 percent of the original frame, so its a big crop. I didn't run NR on the Merganser but lack of details might be from the big crop. I don't have any images of this bird in my files so I'm trying to process a couple I got on the weekend. Wind chill was minus 15 degrees C.

[Stu Bowie]

Wind chill was minus 15 degrees C.

Well done on your repost Jim. Looks much better.

You can keep your - 15 deg C. Just to let you know, we are in a pleasant 31 deg C.