I got a chance to go out early in the morning as my son helped set up my camera and 400 5.6 on my jobu2 and tripod. (just had my surgery Tuesday to put the pieces of my arm back together, Humerus and shoulder) I managed to get a pretty good shot of this Hooded Merganser.
Lens - Canon 400mm 5.6L
Model - Canon EOS 50D
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 400
ShutterSpeedValue - 1/500 seconds
ApertureValue - F 5.60
ExposureBiasValue - 0
MeteringMode - Partial
Flash - Flash not fired, compulsory flash mode
FocalLength - 400 mm
ExposureMode - Auto
White Balance - Auto
What a great moment, helpful son, enjoying this beautiful moment with nature. Hope you heal fast, this type of R & R has to help. Not sure about time of day maybe a tad hot on chest, how does histogram look. Not to worry Ed Forum has plenty of good reading on toning down and recovering detail in hot pixels.
On balance looks good, read histogram and adjust, re-shoot, noticed you were in AV mode. If you clipped to the right might use some -EV. Remember, when the bird has bright/white/highlights, you always meter to proect them first, everything else follows. For example, if I am shooting Chickadees with their white highlights, generally I know to start around( -2/3) in AV mode - manual can be different - well done and thanks for sharing.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 12-06-2009 at 09:45 PM.
Hi Bernie,
A very nice composition indeed, I like the fine details and the color rendition, you have sweet lighting...very good advise given by Mr. Cashdollar. Would have liked a little more room toward the front of your subject...looking forward to your next one...:cool:
These guys are as difficult as it gets regarding light !! Need just about perfect light for keeping the whites is check and shadow detail, though you did well here !!!
Agree with advice form Jeff and can add you might want to select the eye and darken the pupil, it looks funny on all these ducks !!! Excellent !!!
Only a few pixel in red channels are hot around the chest, so you should be able to recover details there. The pattern in the water looks good too, help in complimenting the bird. Just wondering about the light source, the head seem to be in shadow while the chest got full light. Oh, hope you have a speedy recover too.
Early Morning Hoodie
