Last loon of the season

[allanrube]

I shot this 3 weeks ago - my last trip to the pond for the year. Loons were molting and getting set to leave for the ocean, perhaps 35 miles due east.
I picked up an 80-400 VR lens. The focus isn't fast and the IQ is not as good as the 300 f/4 I have been using, but the having a zoom helps in a kayak.

D300s with Nikkor 80-400 VR at 400.
1/1250 f/6.3 EC -1.7 (auto) iso 200.

[Randy Stout]

Allan:

Nice to see one last loon for the season. As they molt it rather reminds me of a tree losing its leaves in the fall.

Its interesting that your loons don't have to go very far for the winter. Our Michigan loons have a very long trip to Florida.

Good choice to crank in significant - EC to preserve the breast. Did you have to do any other processing on the whites in post? Nice low shooting angle.

Thanks for sharing!

Randy

[allanrube]

On some shots I have to lower the exposure even more in pp.* After that, I just try to bring back shadow detail in 75% of the shots and add saturation as needed.


I have been using NX2. There is a slider to preserve highlights but moving it all the way to the right is not that dramatic, thus, the need to lower exposure. I am trying acr now and the highlight recovery slider is more dramatic. In the future, I think I will not have to decrease exposure - just use the slider.

What do you use for loon images. THey are tough - negative ec in the camera is the key for me.

[Randy Stout]

Allan:

I use ACR and PS5, and still need to crank in significant - EC. It depends somewhat on the pose. Full frontal wing flaps in bright light still require the most - EC.

I sometimes use masks with different blend modes on the breast to tone down the whites as well.

I really try to shoot early and late in the day. I am usually off the water by 9:00 AM unless it is very hazy or cloudy. The softer light does help.

I also experiment with different metering patterns. Recently I have been using center weighted more for the loons.

Cheers

Randy

[Katie Rupp]

A really great low shooting angle and I love the texture of the breast feathers. Thanks to you and Randy for the tips for photographing loons...I'm thinking about a trip to do just that this spring.

[allanrube]

I really try to shoot early and late in the day. I am usually off the water by 9:00 AM unless it is very hazy or cloudy. The softer light does help.

I also experiment with different metering patterns. Recently I have been using center weighted more for the loons.
Randy

I use center weighted for the large percentage of my shots.

I agree on lighting. *Any* light seems harsh. :)

[Andrew McLachlan]

Alan, great loon shot. Love the details in the head and the head angle, as well as the colors in the water. Beautiful. Regarding NX2 - do you like it better than photoshop. I have heard from some photographers that feel they get a better end result by using NX2. Look forward to your reply.

[allanrube]

Thanks for the comment.

I used Nikon Capture 4, NX, and NX2 since I switched to Nikon in 2006. More than anything else I like how in camera settings are picked up by the program. I have settings I use and feel quite comfortable with it for conversion.

However, it is slow. especially with D3X files. Nik and Nikon do not seem to be committed to upgrading the program and the Mac version has fallen behind the Windows version. I bought a new fast Mac Pro this summer and NX2 does not run much better than it did on my 4 year old Mac.

ACR is always making little improvements, or so it seems. When you make an adjust with a slider, you see the results right away. You do not have to watch a spinning icon and wait till it stops like you do in NX2.

Before you listen to me, however, I will tell you 2 things. I am just starting and may end up back with NX2. Also, I use NX2 basically as a raw converter. I set wb, exposure, control highlights and shadows - things in the development section - do a little unsharp mask, and then convert to tiff and pick up the image in PS. A friend does almost all his work in NX2 - for him, ACR is not attractive.

That is the best answer I can give. I think you would have to try both programs. See if you can tell the difference and which workflow you prefer.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks very much for the reply Alan. It is very much appreciated. I will give it a try.

[Arthur Morris]

Funny how that lens can make excellent images in the hands of good photographers. I have even seen some excellent flight images with it.

[Randy Stout]

Allan and Andrew:

Thom Hogan, well known Nikon guy, has some interesting thoughts on NX2 on his front page. The gist of his last few NX2 posts has been that it no longer has enough of an edge over ACR in the quality of its conversions to compensate for its slew of problems: slow, poor GUI, poor support of changes,slow,etc.

http://www.bythom.com/

I used NX2 for several years, but finally gave up as I processed more and more images. It is currently having huge problems with the newest version, not the least of which is that it isn't recognizing previous users, and charging them full price to upgrade.

Nikon just doesn't do software very well.

Cheers

Randy

[allanrube]

The newest version is the same with just support for new cameras (they claim a few bug fixes.) I read and write Thom - his comments are what made me decide to do ACR for a while.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks Randy, I'll check out Thom Hogan's site for his thoughts.