Hooded Merganser

[Vaughn Larsen]

Early Morning shot of a male Hooded Merganser. Shot is about 20 minutes after sunrise to allow light to hit the bank of the lake on the far side, which reflects the warm orange tone. March 2020 Littleton, Colorado. A couple small bubbles removed via spot tool in photoshop to eliminate distraction in the background.

Nikon D500
500mm f/4
1.4 teleconverter
1/1600 f6.3 ISO 2500

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hi Vaugh, big welcome to BPN!! Good first offering. Gotta love that beautiful orange water and the faint "brushstrokes" in it. Good parallel swimming pose, nice to have the full reflection too. A bit better head angle towards us would have strengthened the image IMO, but I know these subjects don't always cooperate 100%! Still OK as is though. As posted I do feel that some of the blacks are a bit dark, and their may be some more detail lurking within waiting to get extracted. I do love the texture on the forehead and up the crest - very cool. The water drop hanging at the tip of the feather is another neat touch. Looking forward to more from you!

[dankearl]

Wow, that is starting with a bang..You obviously know what you are doing but posting on a critique forum, you will still enjoy yourself...
water and shooting angle is very nice, from the catchlight and ISO you had nice conditions to get the whites right.
Blacks could use some lifting if you can, at iso2500 probably not.
A very nice photo of a great subject..

[John Mack]

The color in the water is great here. Though to expose for these birds in the low light and bright water.

[Kurt Bowman]

Great to see you posting here Vaughn! Love the water color. The hoodie pops right off the page. I agree about the blacks, but still a great image. Looking forward to you posting more!

[Jim Crosswell]

Excellent image! I love that water color and light texture in the water. If you have more canvas I would make the Merganser smaller in the frame so we can see more of it. Welcome to BPN.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Vaughn, welcome to BPN. I echo all the positive comments posted. Lovely image, thank you for sharing.

[gail bisson]

Welcome to BPN! A very nice first image!
POV is excellent, that gold water is to die for. I like that single drop on the feather.
Agree with the others re:blacks. I feel the overall exposure could go up by 1/2 stop.
Gail

[David Roach]

Wow, that water is to die for and so is the subject. TFS

ps
That crest, that eye... Welcome aboard and what a start!!

[Randy Stout]

Vaughn:

Welcome to BPN. Excellent image, agree about the blacks. As a D500 shooter, the noise is very well controlled here. Did you NR in post?

Look forward to more!

Randy

[Brian Sump]

Vaughn, awesome to see you here my friend! Welcome :-)

I know you do some great work and this is no exception. How did you get this stud to color coordinate the water color with his eye??

Super composition. Some great comments above and agreed on loosening the blacks will really help.

Look forward to more!

[Vaughn Larsen]

Many thanks Daniel. I'll explore the blacks.

[Vaughn Larsen]

Thanks Randy. I did run this through Nik denoise. The Merganser is just on the edge of the shadow of the lake shore so whole image is somewhat of a shadow and on the edge for the D500 ISO limit to me.

[Vaughn Larsen]

Thanks Brian - I'm hoping this will happen again in March. I'll let you know.

[Brian Sump]

Thanks Brian - I'm hoping this will happen again in March. I'll let you know.

Please do :-)