Bufflehead portrait

[Dorian Anderson]

Man, it's been a productive week around here! Got this one this morning. Perfect for the theme!

It took some work to keep the whites and get the full color spectrum.....

Canon 600mm f/4 IS II + 1.4x III on EOS 1DX Mark II
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 400
Processed in LR CC. Removed a few tiny distractions.

Cheers!

[dankearl]

Sorry Dorian, this is does not do it..
Whites are blown, too many highlights, too much saturation.
Not up to your standard.

[arash_hazeghi]

cool pose but I agree the details in blacks are blocked and the whites are flat. need to reprocess

TFS

[Dorian Anderson]

Sorry Dorian, this is does not do it..
Whites are blown, too many highlights, too much saturation.
Not up to your standard.

My eyes are super tired tonight, and I think you comment makes sense. I hadn't knocked the highlights down at all in the first post for some reason. I've toned them down a bunch here. Sat down a bit too. Hopefully a bit better.....

[annmpacheco]

Hi Dorian, nope exposure nightmare... top head oof and looks too crunchy... way too much sat...

[gail bisson]

The repost is definitely better and I am OK with the colors as portrayed. These are such tiny ducks- how big of a crop is this?
I would clone out the specular highlights on the bill.
Gail

[Dorian Anderson]

OK, maybe third time is the charm. Was so tire when I put up the second effort last night it was lacking.

Here I turned down the color bit more and brought the darks up. Effect is less dramatic but I think the techs are better.

Thank you all for the feedback. This is one of the few places it's possible to get honest feedback, even when the shot needs a lot of work!

[Isaac Grant]

Considering how difficult it is to get the colors of a male Bufflehead all perfect the 3rd one is very good Dorian. The whites of the chest and belly are still much too gray but the flanks look great. The whites of the head look very good and the colors on the head do not look overly saturated to me. When the light hits these little guys just perfectly they really come to life. I would caution not too overly crop your shots. Maybe it is because I am not used to the details in the D850, when other shots are cropped too much you can see the difference in the fine feather details.

[Jake Levin]

Third image is definitely the best. The colours on the duck are gorgeous. I'm curious, given how shy these little guys typically are, how did you get this close to one? Are they more approachable out west than in the east? I only ask because off the top of my head, all of the bufflehead photos I see of this variety are from somewhere on the west coast.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Dorian, lovely image the colors are striking. Looking at the image I wondered if you use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom. If so you can fine tune the whites or areas of the whites. I gave it a go on your image and using the Adjustment Brush and a Range Mask using the color eyedropper to select just the whites, reducing the blacks in the white took away the gray. You might give it a go, the newer updates to Lightroom have some wonderful tools. Thank you for sharing.

[John Mack]

Like the colors on that head. The Low angle is nice and the dark background. Is this one of those big crops?

[Jim Crosswell]

The third one looks best to me but I find the blacks on the back are starting to look unnatural. The head looks great and I like the low angle. Very well done Dorian.