40d. 400f5.6L at f/7.1. iso 320. 1/800s. bean bag on ground. evaulative metering +1 to expose to right. Pulled it back a bit during RAW conversion
I dont do big crops but I have done one here. This is probably just 25% of the orig frame. The IQ held up pretty well. I am, infact, thinking I should back off a bit on sharpening.
When I saw, the Swan had his/her neck&head in the water. I visualised this shot and set myself up very low with sun behind me. I will post next frame as well. Instead of coming out fully, he/she went back in :-) came back out but at a different angle.
Superb stuff Kaustubh, like the way you have showed the frame sequence, really nice :) Love the detail on the bird head and the water droplets. Excellent composition and low angle TFS
Kaus, love the curves of the neck, tack sharp, and those droplets puts this over the top. ( IMHO, I feel your second frame will turn out even better:) ) Well captured.
Nicely conceived, captured and presented. I like the crop, and the IQ held up well for that large a cut. Sharpening looks OK to me. Thanks for sharing the sequence.
Love the low angle, water drops on the face and neck, and IQ for the large crop. I agree about adding some body back (perhaps double what you currently have). You could eliminate or tone down the two parallel bright streaks on the bill. I find the second image to be stronger with the water falling off the bill.:)
KD, nice capture. Love the curves in the neck and you did well with the exposure. I like the re-post better with more of the body. The IQ held pretty well for the large corp. TFS.
The 2nd image repost is just brilliant !! Love the exposure you have on the bird. The water drops stand out superbly !! The sharpening looks ok . The drops would have looked very artificial , if you would have gone overboard :) . Brilliant image overall !!
Well executed plan. Like the final repost best. Good techs. Appreciate Roberts point about angle of shooting, to get the entire head/bird on the blue, not cut by the shoreline.
The trade off would be slightly less dramatic low shooting angle.
kd you made my day. what an amazing angle here with such a brilliant details. congrats on every moment you got of this .. loved the 2nd version more with water dropping from beak as it adds values to the moment you captured.
Randy, Robert, thx for the good advice on the shooting angle. When I set up, I was expecting the bird to come out fully. I chose the shooting angle to make sure the body would be entirely against blue as I was sure the neck would intersect at some point. After this, he went down and immediately came up but at a different angle. I'll share this image from a few seconds later. The image I had visualized was exactly like this but with better HA :-)