Gadwall wing-flap

[John Chardine]

In a split second I fired-off 6 images of this Gadwall raising out of the water and performing a wing-flap. Unfortunately, I was not prepared for this and the underwings were badly blown. However, I was able produce three differently exposed images from the single RAW in ACR and then use Exposure Blending in Photomatix Pro to get this result. I have just started using Exposure Blending and I like it a lot. It seems to produce much more realistic results than tone mapping. Let me know what you think.

Canon EOS 50D, 400/5.6
capture date: Sunday, 25 October 2009, 3:03 PM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 800
shutter speed: 1/1000
aperture: f7.1
exposure bias: +0.0
metering: Pattern
flash: OFF

[Randy Stout]

John:

Excellent save here. Good detail in the near wing and breast. Environmental detail/luminosity just right for me.

In a perfect world, I wish the near wing was back a bit to clear the head, and the far wing was farther forward t clear the bill! Not being too picky am I? :):) Either that, or the bird rotated a few degrees more toward you, or you able to move to your right at light speed!

I would be very interested to see the original file without any compensation dialed in, just to see what you started with.

Thanks

Randy

[paul leverington]

First I might have to say that there aren't too many gadwall shots out there like this with a wing flap. You definitely have my curiosity up on your exposure work John. I haven't as of yet gone down that road but maybe I should get going with it already.

There seems to be a problem with the lighting to me. His right wing shows fairly strong directional light--which by the way does an awesome job defineing the feathers, but the rest of him--his head and body show none of this. It could be an illusion on my part, but the light source looks to be to his left a little so as to get those long shadows from that row of feathers on the right wing. Just hought I'd mention it and truly that might be the way the shot was, but if the exposure combining brought up any darker shaded side areas you might think about putting a little of that back--easily done i'm sure if so. If not --then disregard all I have just said.
Biggest deal is the bg is too close to our guy here and the detail in it steals some showtime. You could crop in I suppose and eliminate some of it. And if you could have been somewhat lower with the camera say belly button level(good luck finding that one)

Paul

[Brian Barcelos]

Other than the wing cutting off some of the head I really like this image and don't mind the BG. Love the colors and feather detail, body posture really makes this image. Congrats

[Harshad Barve]

what a good pose , BG is not ideal but do not bother me much
I liked it very much as presented
TFS

[Dave Barnes]

I think the end result on the bird is great. The underside of the wings look like satin. I also find the BG to be distracting. I would crop to get the bird out of the centre of the frame.

[arash_hazeghi]

very interesting pose, looks the fellow is stretching after a long day. EXP looks very good on my screen. Agree with blurring BG more.

[John Chardine]

Many thanks for all the great and useful comments. Paul- yours was particularly insightful and I think you are right that the exposure blending did cause some tonal anomalies on the underwing. I've tried to correct that with some dodging. I also subtly blurred the BG and reduced the tonal range with some mild cloning. I hope these changes have improved the image.

BTW, in the 6 images I made in the sequence, I purposely chose this one to post because of the slight peek-a-boo effect of the wing hiding part of the head. I have others with the head fully showing- maybe for another time!