Northern Shoveler

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Folks

Got a wee bit warm yesterday, 90F so we drove 35 minutes N of Green Valley to Sweetwater where there are va lot of water fowl and others, also gave me some exercise walking around the lake . . . need that :)
CC's warmly invited

Uncle Gus

Olympus E-620, Zuiko 70-300n @ 600 mm equiv, HH
Aperture priority:F/6.3. 1/3200s, ISO 400, -0.70eV, Auto WB

[Bob Miller]

Hi Gus...nice clean backgrnd and nice reflection on this. You might try sharpening the eye just a bit and running some noise reduction on the background.

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Bob

Thanks for looking & your CC's

Uncle Gus

[Gus Hallgren]

Eye is very marginal when reposting, but noise looks likes it's gone?

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Gus The eye of those guys always looks goofy and you need to darken the pupil, not sure why !!!

Also need real soft light for capturing the tonal range, not way to get any shadow detail and hold the whites, they are tough ! Got the whites pushed as much as possible and still shadows need more. Was thinking if they would stand still long enough we could HDR those ducks !!! .. noise looks fine !

[Dave Mills]

Hi Gus, Agree that noise looks fine. Lots of neg space up top so I would take some off. Shovelers are not the easiest bird to capture due to the darks and lights and capturing a head angle where the green shows up. It's tough getting a good result with this species without soft light...