Wood Duck - male

[gail bisson]

Taken in Vancouver, February 2017
Canon 1DX
600mm and 1.4 x ISO 1000 F 9 SS 1/250
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[William Dickson]

Beautiful colours, and I love that calling pose. The BG colour shows the bird real well. Nice one Gail.

Will

[John Mack]

Love the pose and colors of this one, nice background as well.

[arash_hazeghi]

love the pose with open bill and a nice BG, would be tempted to recover more detail in the blacks

TFS

[Joseph Przybyla]

Quite striking, the turned back head with the bill open. Beautiful colors with a perfect background. I can see why Arash thinks there might be more recoverable detail in the black, especially on the neck. Always a compromise when blacks and whites are together. Thank you for sharing, Gail.

[Isaac Grant]

I agree that the displaying pose is just about perfect. Excellent details throughout. Agree with Arash that a little more detail in the darks would be nice. I'm super impressed at the level of detail you were able to get at such a slow shutter speed and how you froze the action. Could I ask what was the scenery here and conditions?

[Michael Thompson]

I love how the head is tilted back, and framed perfectly, love the feather detail in the head, and the saw like edge on the bill. maybe brighten it up just a little. great shot

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful colours and pose Gail, a very striking image. Ditto the dark plumage.

[gail bisson]

I agree that the displaying pose is just about perfect. Excellent details throughout. Agree with Arash that a little more detail in the darks would be nice. I'm super impressed at the level of detail you were able to get at such a slow shutter speed and how you froze the action. Could I ask what was the scenery here and conditions?

Hi Isaac,
This wood duck was standing on a wooden handrail at a local park in Vancouver. I was set up on the tripod and it was a cloudy day. The background is distant trees across the pond. For the next frame I did increase my ISO and SS and I got lucky freezing the action at this low SS for this image. I shot this as a vertical so it is almost FF which helps getting lots of detail.
Re: the blacks. On my RAW and TIFF I do have more details in the blacks but when I convert to JPEG the details are gone. I did go back and rework the TIFF to lighten the blacks but when I downsized the reworked TIFF the black details still don't show on the JPEG. Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this issue?

[Bill Dix]

Sweet portrait. Great pose, detail, colors and a handsome in-camera comp. Well done.

[gail bisson]

Here is a redo to try and get detail out of blacks. I used a combination of the S/H tool and detail extractor.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I don't think S/H is the ideal tool Gail, it's a great shot, I would recommend going back to the raw file, then raise the darkest elements and if necessary after this a soft light adjustment in PP.
(I find TK Actions are very good indeed)

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, a great portrait for the theme, and a bonus that you captured a great calling pose. Excellent detail throughout, and all against a killer smooth BG.

[Melissa Usrey]

Absolutely spectacular!