Male Australasian Shoveler photographed at the local sewage ponds. Thanks to Leo Berzins for letting me know about a terrific spot where you can get real close to waterbirds there.
Canon 40D, EF500 f/4, Gitzo tripod flat on the ground, mongoose head, Evaluative, Av, ISO 200, 1/400 f/11, slight crop from bottom and left.
Last edited by Simon Bennett; 03-19-2009 at 05:49 AM.
Simon, the light is a bit hard to my taste and I think that you can rework the darkest areas with H/S filter to extract more details: The low angle is great and the eye contact very good. :-)
Well done, Simon.
Great colours and relaxed pose (for a shoveler).
Minor nit: a pity the detail in the tail is lost in shadow due to the slight body angle relative to your camera plane.
I don't know what the HAP view is, but I always like an image where there's a glimpse of background visible throught the nostrils (or nares, if you like) of the bird.
Great angle, details and light. I might crop a bit off the bottom and reduce contrast for more details in the blacks, probably easier to do in the RAW file.
Fabs, the colour noise you see on the head looks to me like some natural iridescence. I agree that some of the body could go brighter, but overall very nice.
First of all, welcome back Juan. It is good to see your smiling face. We have missed you.
I think that this is a fabulous image. It does need a bit of CW rotation. This head angle is close to perfect but I would gladly lose the view of the water through the nares for having the head lined up straight with the body, i.e., with the head turned a bit more towards us. The light looks rather sweet to me. I love the sharpness, the colors, and esp. the pattern on the face. Let's see more from the lagoon!
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I can vouch for the difficulty in approaching our waterbirds. I can echo Artie's comments re: sweet light, sharpness and colors. Well done mate. Wish I could get this close here. Thus far I managed one five second session with a pair of these at Pitt Town Lagoon!
Australasian Shoveler
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