A duck, but I don't know what type it is. Could it be a Mallard variant maybe?
This was taken at the harbour. I went there to shoot some BIFs but none of the birds were interested in flying and just sat there, or floated, so I decided to shoot some ducks.
The water in the harbour is some 2 meters below street level and I could not get lower, so the angle is a bit steeper than I would like. Also it was a dull and overcast day. Taken just before 11 a.m. with a Canon 40D and Canon 300 f/4
Settings:
ISO 100
f/4
1/400
Manual
Spotmetering
Center point AF
HH
In CS5:
cropped about 40%
shadows/highlights
levels for the midtones
curves to add some contrast
pulled out the eye a bit
Some noise reduction on the background, applying a surface blur for each individual channel, each with different values. I applied some 20% of that on the darkest parts of the bird on the RGB composite as well.
For sharpening I applied a moderate High Pass filter so as to include the water in front of the bird.
I would be grateful for any and all help in improving the image. Most particularly I wonder about the composition. This is the kind of image I take regularly and I never know where to put the bird exactly.
With this image I chose to put it in the back in an attempt to lessen the balcony view somewhat. And as the water, oozing from the bird's beak should be the center of attention (should it?) I just about put that on the upper right grid point.
Good detail and the whites are well controlled. A lower viewing angle, if possible, is a desired attribute in many avian images, but as you noted here, it is not always possible. However, higher viewing angles are sometimes better in the case of the inclusion of reflections, best on a close to mirror like water surface where ripple distortion is limited. Very low viewing angles stretch and cause DOF related blurring to the reflection, which is sometimes just fine. In the case of smooth water surfaces a viewing angle that allows the subject and reflection to be roughly the same size seems to work best.
Generally if the reflection is quite distorted (as in this image) I'd try to minimize it by cropping, or don't include most of it when framing in the viewfinder.
Postioning of the subject; with the symmetry created by an equal sized subject and reflection I'd place it in the center vertically (symmetrical composition). Horizontal placement usually needs to take into account the direction the subject is moving, and leave space for it to move into. Other compositional ideas can be considered, most often the "rule of thirds". In any case balancing the image is the goal.
Glad to see you posting at BPN. Look forward to seeing more of your images. regards~Bill
The color and exposure looks really nice to me. You did an excellent job capturing the full range of colors. but It seems that it's a bit soft, especially around the wings. Could that be a side effect of the noise reduction? Since you are shooting wide open at 100 ISO, I would think the noise should be low so I do wonder why there would have been noise to begin with?
I think Bill did a nice job covering the composition and I can't think of anything that he didn't already cover there.
Thank you for your thoughts on composition, Bill. Very helpful. The part about reflections is a bit puzzling though as I don't quite understand why they have to be as smooth as possible. Is it considered more esthetically pleasing than a rippled reflection?
Hey Matthew. I did shoot wide open but the images were still a bit underexposed and adding a bit of light in post brought out a bit of noise in the darks, as adding light will do that, even when shot at 100 ISO, at least with the 40D. However, it was only a hint of noise and I applied a very small amount of NR and only on those very dark brown parts. Could it be that it looks a bit soft due to the High Pass filter, as that targets the edges only? Plus I didn't dare use too high a value as it causes halos very quickly. Which is why I don't use that method often but with the rippled water I thought it a good idee to use it this time. Of course, after reading Bill's comment I now know that I probably should have blurred that reflection and those ripples some instead of sharpening them!
Thank you, Bill and Matthew, for taking the time to comment. All very educational.
Hi again Levina. About the reflection; esthetically pleasing is very subjective, and indeed in some images, especially with bright colors, distorted reflections can be interesting. A perfect reflection is boring to me at least, but I think the reflection is better if it is a reasonable facsimile of the subject.
More about the sharpness of the image. Often insufficient shutter-speed is the culprit, and sharpening isn't going to help. As a matter of fact, sharpening will not blur an image but in creating edge sharpness it adds digital noise.
1/400 sec may have been too slow, especially with an ASP-C sensor where 400mm may actually be 600mm. Image stabilization, whether in camera or lens, only compensates for camera movement, and even a duck, which seems fairly stationary, may have up and down movement due to wave action.
The is no significant advantage in shooting ISO 100, it is much more likely to cause blurring problems due to insufficient shutter-speed. As a matter of fact the advantages of using higher ISOs easily outweigh digital noise problems, which can be held in check by "exposing to the right" since digital noise occurs primarily in the dark parts of an image.
Increasing exposure in PP of an underexposed image, as you have witnessed, results in the appearance of digital noise regardless of ISO, therefore underexposure should be avoided.
regards~Bill
Ever since I read an article about exposing to the right, that is what I am trying to do, when possible, and certainly when I photograph with higher iso, so I understand what you are saying. But if there's not enough light, then that becomes difficult as I feel that the 40D does not handle high iso well. And that is my problem at the moment: no light. That's also why I do all my shooting with the lens wide open these days. But I didn't realize that the slow shutter speeds were making my images soft.
However, when I read your explanation and thought a bit about it, it suddenly dawned on me that when I shot at higher iso I was still exposing to the left, simply because I was afraid to take it higher.
And so, what I will try next time out, is to increase ISO as far as I need to take it to get a fast enough shutter speed *and* be able to shoot to the right, and then see what results that will give me in terms of noise. I actually never tried that out. Who knows, maybe the 40D does much better with high iso than I give it credit for...
In any case, I learned something today. Thank you very much!!
Levina, I also shoot with the 40D and, yes, it can get noisy at higher ISO's but I've really had minimal problems if I keep it between 200-400 and use fill flash from the oncamera flash when I feel it needs a little more light on the front of the subject. Granted, if the subject is halfway across the lake it's not going to help any but I can usually get within a decent range where I go because the lakes/ponds are generally not too big.
I started off underexposing EVERYTHING because I liked the look of the intense dark colors but soon learned that it can be a real pain to get the noise under control so I tried the "exposing to the right" and will take a quick test shot to check my exposure and then adjust from there. I expose so the whites of the bird are at the very edge without spiking the histogram and let the darks fall where they may. If the only whites on the bird are minimal (maybe a small patch or two) then I'll expose for the darks and let the chips fall where they may with the whites.
As you continue to photograph avian subjects you'll get a feel for what each camera/lens combo does best and you'll begin to automatically "know" where to start off with your settings depending on past history. It does eventually sink in and even though each image is a whole new challenge, your past experience will begin to automatically start you off in the right direction so there is less trial and error before finding the right combination to get the best results.
Except in very bright sunlight I automatically set the 40D to 200 or 400 ISO as I've learned that it really does give me the best overall images in 95% of the cases. Even then I still have to push myself to expose to the right as I'm always afraid I'll go too far no matter what that histogram shows me.
This is a Mallard hybrid- note the green head and yellow bill. They hybridise with other duck species and farmyard ducks. This one looks like a case of the latter. Not sure what farmyard variety. All images points covered above. Interesting looking bird. Never seen one quite like this.
Hi Jules. I didn't know that you could use the built-in flash as everybody seems to use a better beamer, but I will definitely experiment with that too when I need more light. Thanks! I also appreciate your comment on the noise, iso and the 40D. Great stuff. Thank you!
Thank you too, John, for helping with the ID. I thought it would be some Mallard hybrid but wasn't sure.
Hi Dave. Well, this was a trip to the harbour to shoot gulls in flight, when I saw this duck. But I normally shoot waterfowl at a few public parks and I can get as low as I like. I just bought a Jobu gimbal and plan to buy the Skimmer groundpod as well so this year I'll be able to really get down to eye level. I'm real excited about that. :)
Unidentified Floating Object...
