Back-lit Ferruginous Duck

[Aditya Sridhar]

This image was shot at The Regent's Park, London during sunrise (7am-ish). I chose to photograph this bird back-lit because having the sun behind my back meant having to cross over to the other side of the lake and risk having a busy background with a lot of people.

Going prone wasn't an option at this spot so I had to place my camera on the ground and rely on Nikon's excellent, fast and reliable Live View AF. Coming to the image, I chose to leave most of the specular highlights and water droplets in. I evened out the exposure of the scene by darkening the FG and raising the shadows in the BG. I then applied Nik Detail Extractor to the bird at a low setting and tried to recover some detail in the (sadly) blown out highlights on the chest and head.

Camera - Nikon D850
Focal Length - 420mm
Aperture - f/5.6
Shutter Speed - 1/1600s
ISO - 2000
Handheld
Manual
Crop - 80% appx.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the composition and processing. I'm fairly inexperienced when it comes to photographing back-lit subjects so I'd appreciate any tips that you might have to share

[Moe Richard]

Exquisite point of view and light. I think I would consider cloning away some of the specular artifacts but not all.

[Alex Becker]

Hi Aditya, I really like this. I love these type of highlights. I didn't notice the blown HLs until I read your caption. I generally expect some amount of clipping with these images so it doesn't bother me too much. A pano crop here taking some off the bottom could be nice. TFS

[dankearl]

I like the back lighting since you were able to raise the shadows on the bird.
Blown highlights are minimal. The specular highlights are personal preference i think, I would prefer less...

[Dorian Anderson]

This is equally creative and lovely. The brown tones are beautiful and the bird is giving you a greta curious look. Could care less about so-called 'blown' highlights. They don't affect mood/feel/effectiveness of shot. They add a nery nice kiss of light to the dark. I second the idea for a more pano crop if you have the canvass.

[John Mack]

Very nice. Like the mood this one conveys. I wouldn't worry about the highlights on this one.

[gail bisson]

I like this and your PP is excellent,
Gail

[Aditya Sridhar]

Thanks all for the feedback! I'll give the pano crop a shot

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Very nice. I like the point of view