Drake Hooded Merganser

[Danny J Brown]

Hi all,

I'm Danny Brown and I've been following BPN for a while now and I've decided its time to jump in. I live in Missouri, where I do 99% of my photography. I've already posted my first image in the Wildlife Gallery and I'm taking my lumps over there as we speak. :) My first post on the Avian Gallery is a hooded merganser that I photographed last spring at Marais Temps Clair Conservation Area. It is a bit stark and the angle isn't as low as I would have liked but here it is. Thanks for looking and I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Canon 40D; Canon 300 F4 L; 1/500; F/4.5; EC +2/3; ISO200; Manfrotto 055XB w/488RC2

[Kiran Poonacha]

welcome Danny, great first post, Wished for more eye contact, but killer looking bird...

Congrats..

[Mike Milicia]

Welcome to BPN!

Excellent exposure and detail and great job getting him with the raised hood!

Wish for more eye contact, i.e. since he is facing away from you, would like to see head turned back to at least parallel to the camera.
Would consider cropping some off the top and would like to see more room on the right.

[Harshad Barve]

Big welcome to Avians
Awesome image to start with, HA do not bother me much as beauty of head is showing nicely here , I may add some space in front of bird
keep them coming
TFS

[Clement Francis]

My God what a beauty this is

[arash_hazeghi]

Welcome to BPN Danny,
What an interesting specie, looks like she just met the hair specialist!
I would sharpen the feathers, pop the contrast and crop closer to 3:2 ratio.
I would stop down more to get the tail in focus as well.

TFS and welcome again.

[Danny J Brown]

Thanks for the nice welcome, kind comments and great recommendations. I wish I would have captured some more room in front to get the full reflection but the little guy popped down out of the sky after I'd been waiting for four hours in the weeds so I just focused on his eye and went into my tunnel vision mode. Arash is correct that I should have stopped down because I was shooting at 1/500 so I definitely had some room. Thanks again guys.

[Bill Dix]

Great first post. Eye contact already noted, but it's great that you got the eye in the reflection, and the fully extended hood is incredible. Might consider a bit of selective sharpening. Well done!

[Daniel Cadieux]

With the eye sharp I am fine with the DOF. One thing I could suggest is to raise the ISO (ISO 400 is my default for bird photography - with variances when needed)...you'll get higher shutter speeds, and more room to stop down if and when you wish to do so. Bird swimming and looking away is less than ideal, and I agree a crop from bottom is in order as the reflected head is cut at an odd place (crop to just above the eye).

Oh, almost forgot...welcome to BPN!! Hoping to see some more from you :-)

[Danny J Brown]

Thanks Daniel. I've been leaving my camera set on ISO 400 for a while now and my ability to shoot at higher shutter speeds has been more valuable than the very slight loss of smoothness in the background. Now ISO 800 is another story with the 40D but its doable in a pinch.

[Danny J Brown]

I took most of the comments, including contrast, sharpness, and composition and came up with the attached repost. Although I can be stubborn sometimes, I think it looks much better, for sure! Daniel, I think your composition tip really helped. I'm looking forward to my next avian post.

[Arthur Morris]

The re-post is too tight on the bottom and it could still use more contrast and blacker blacks. Great bird; nice pose.

You could have posted lots more pixels.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: Also sharpened only the bird.

[Danny J Brown]

You guys are just confusing me now. I still like Daniel's crop recommendation as seen in my repost and I feel that Artie's repost is a little oversharpened for my taste. Thanks again Artie for going back to take a look.

[Dan Brown]

Hey Danny! Welcome! Cool name!(my family all call me Danny!) What a specimen! I think that I prefer the less-tight crop. The head seems sharp in your original post but I am on a laptop here!

[Danny J Brown]

Thanks for the welcome Dan. My actual name is "Danny." I don't think my parents knew how to spell Daniel (smile). I'm glad you liked the merganser. It actually made the 2010 Ducks Unlimited Calendar (with Artie's recommended crop). I look forward to sharing more duck photos and commenting on photos from the original Dan Brown.

[Dan Brown]

Huge Congrats on the calander Danny! Looking forward to more!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks Daniel. I've been leaving my camera set on ISO 400 for a while now and my ability to shoot at higher shutter speeds has been more valuable than the very slight loss of smoothness in the background. Now ISO 800 is another story with the 40D but its doable in a pinch.

Good to know you've been using higher ISOs when needed. I also use the 40D as main camera and never hesitate to use ISO 800 (or the intermediates: 500, 640) when the situation calls for it. The image quality is perfectly acceptable at those settings - and way better than missing the opportunity:)

P.S. Artie's reposted crop turned out really well.