Taken Saturday, 1/15 at Chincoteague NWR. Late afternoon with sun at my back. I fixed a couple of bright spots on the bill and body, adjustment layer for whites using linear burn at 27%, levels, curves and usm on duck. Curves, SH on water. This is 50% of FF so I did not want to crop any further to preserve IQ.
Sony A700, 70-400G @400mm, f8, 1/500, iso 400, ec +0.3, tripod.
Ray's right...technically, this looks pretty good at this point but the body turned away and the HA going backwards from the focal plane are your biggest challenge at this point. Waiting for the birds to turn towards you or lining yourself up so they are swimming in your direction is the biggest thing you can do in bird photography. If he's moving away from you, you at least need that head turn back towards you to give the viewer a connected feeling to the subject.
That said...very nice detail and good recovery on those whites! Linear burn is a godsend at times. Compositionally, you might look at taking some of the negative space (water) out of the equation so the bird has more room within the frame.
Thank you ray and Julie for your comments. Only having a 400mm lense was a definite drawback during my visit. A thin layer of ice around the impoundment edges was keeping the ducks from coming closer to my set up. This male and the 3 females he was with spent most of the time with thier heads in the water. This was the best HA I got out of all the shots I took.
Thanks again,
Peter
Nothern Shoveler
Posting Permissions
