The Elusive Water Rail

[William Dickson]

Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/10
1/160
ISO 2000

I was in my hide during a quiet day, as far as birds were concerned, when I saw a Mute Swan bathing. I usually keep my fps on the slow side, as not to make too much noise with the camera. I upped my frame rate to 12 fps, so not to miss any of the action with the swan. After firing off a few shots, I caught a glimpse of a bird, flying in, and perching in front of me. On looking, I saw it was this Water Rail, which in my part of the world are very elusive, I have only seen it once before, and this was a quick glimpse as it went scurrying by. Unfortunately for me, it perched behind a clump of wood on the loch, hence the crop. The bird seemed mesmerised by the noise the camera was making. It stood in the same place, completely froze, and kept the same pose, like a statue. I continued with the fast frame rate, and the bird never moved. I took over 500 shots of the bird, and it never moved once. As soon as I decided to take my camera off the tripod, to get in a better position, the bird flew, and was never to be seen again that day. The bird was perched in a shaded area, and I experimented with different camera settings. Although the shutter speed I used was slow, I found the images I took with these settings, looked the best to me.

Will

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hey Will, nice to capture an image of a bird that is elusive and not seen easily. Love the colors of the bird and complimenting background. I think if you dodged the area around the eye it would even the exposure on the face. I looked at the image earlier and then went about house things and came back now, both time my first impression was that I would lower the sharpening a tad. There is wonderful detail on the feathers I don't think it would take away from that. The bill on my display appears a little crunchy. Maybe my display, I think you just got a new display so take it for what it worth. Thank you for sharing.

[William Dickson]

Thanks for that Joe. The sharpness does look ok on my display, as you said, probably because of the 5k retina display I have on the iMac

Will

[Glenn Pure]

Will, this is a really artistic shot. I love the pose and the unorthodox composition and framing. It works extremely well for me. I can see what Joe is saying about sharpening and the crunchy look but wonder if the light and the plumage are such that it does actually look a lot like this. Only you would know but always a dilemma when nature looks a bit 'weird' as to how to render this in PP. I even like the diagonals in the background a lot too. I really enjoyed this one a heap so thanks for your posting.

[William Dickson]

Thanks, Joe and Glenn, much appreciated.

Will