Blue Wing Teal

[kevin Hice]

Processed with Dpp 4,Photoshop.Lighten the whites and some eye work.Added some canvas on the right side.Shot from blind on tripod.
Canon 5D Mark 1V
Lens 500 F4
converter 1.4
Shooting Mode Av
Aperture 6.3
ISO 800
Shutter speed,1600

[John Mack]

Love the water drop and the reflection is nice as well. The whites look cooked.

[Isaac Grant]

Hey Kevin, this is one of those almost shots for me. Beautiful green and calm water, one of my favorite duck species as well. However there are things that could have made this stronger. The bird is slightly angled away from us and not towards us. As John mentioned, the whites of the facial disc and flanks are too hot and without detail, the whole image is about half a stop over exposed.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree with the above criotiques, but I will say that I really like the large water drop at the tip of the bill. Except for the lower strip of colour, I also like the water. These guys are tough to get close too over here!

[kevin Hice]

Thanks Issac ,I have another I will try and do better.I am having trouble reducing the white values where I can get some detail.

[kevin Hice]

Thanks John I am working on the whites in post.

[kevin Hice]

Thanks Daniel I have been having trouble getting the white values right . I will try on another shot . Thanks again

[gail bisson]

Hi Kevin,
I agree with Isaac about this being an "almost" shot.
Main problems of overexposure and head angled away have been brought forward.
I love that reflection and the water drop. Do you have your highlight blinkies enabled on your camera?This will give you near instant feedback in the field if your whites are blown.
Once the whites are truly blown there is nothing in PP you can do to get them back. If you have an area of correctly exposed whites, you could always clone that area in to the blown area.
Gail

[kevin Hice]

Thanks Gail,and yes I have it enacted and never showed any blinkies. The value was in the 255 range. I tried taking the whites down with the Hue saturation and using the lightness slider. Would I be better in the levels adjustment. Actually the values on the Jpeg were at 242. In Dpp if I take the brightness slider
down to the 230 range I only have information in the third box and the rest of the duck is underexposed The original file was only in the fifth box a little and no blinkies.