Surfing Surf Scoter

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Photographed at Barnegat Light on a day when the waves made photographing for me and swimming for the ducks a little difficult. :)



1D4, 500f4, 1.4x, 1/1250s, f/8, EC -0.33, ISO 400

[Randy Stout]

Axel:

Really like the comp, with wave and bird working the diagonal. Well exposed, nice job holding the whites. I don't know if you can tease out a bit more detail from the shadows behind the head, but the water drops there do add some interest to that area.

Cheers

Randy

[adrian dancy]

I like this ...bags of interest and well exposed.

[Jim Fenton]

Different and wonderful image Axel.

Like the down wave flow with the bird and the crop, exposure and sharpness are as they should be.

[John Chardine]

Beautiful Axel. The exposure seems dead-on and I love the colours in the bird. The action is a huge bonus.

For interest, how much cropping did you do here?- just trying to get an idea of close you get to the birds at Barnegat.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Beautiful Axel. The exposure seems dead-on and I love the colours in the bird. The action is a huge bonus.

For interest, how much cropping did you do here?- just trying to get an idea of close you get to the birds at Barnegat.

Thanks, John! I'm not on the computer where I have the file right now but according to the EXIF, the distance was 17 meters, so maybe 75% of full frame. I will check later for the exact numbers.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Looks great Axel. Love the bow wave. Exp looks good to me. :)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Axel,
Very cool pose! Love the surfer action too.Exposure looks right on on this end too!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated!

John, I looked at the cropped TIFF file, it is 3000 pixels wide, which is about 61% of full frame.

[Rich Steel]

A surfing surf scoter what more could you ask for from a photo. I like the diagonal angle of the bird and the surrounding foam and water movement. Lokking very good on both exposure and sharpness. I wonder if a touch of the top may give more of an impression of riding down the wave. Lovely photo of a wonderful bird.

cheers

Rich

[Deborah Hanson]

Like everyone above, I really like the movement in the image. The water in front of the bird is great and that someone can still see the hint of the bird beneath all that water is amazing. I also like that the feet are somewhat visible as well. Whites, details, sharpness are, of course, all good.
Is it possible to lighten the blacks a bit? or will that throw off the color and composition as is?

Deb

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Like everyone above, I really like the movement in the image. The water in front of the bird is great and that someone can still see the hint of the bird beneath all that water is amazing. I also like that the feet are somewhat visible as well. Whites, details, sharpness are, of course, all good.
Is it possible to lighten the blacks a bit? or will that throw off the color and composition as is?

Deb

Thanks, Deb! I could try to lighten the blacks a little and see if they would look washed out that way.