bufflehead drake - making some progress

[Enrique Patino]

taken on a pond surrounded by trees late in the pm during a brief break in cloud cover

canon 7D, 100-400mm @400, f/5.6, 1/1000s, ISO 800, spot metering (why? - error), manual mode... (seems like I had underexposed darks and overexposed highlights, or at least lacking detail)

At least I figured out how to do a linear burn according to Digital Basics - and some help since I am currently using a macbook pro with an external monitor and a windows keyboard (shortcuts are a bit tricky to figure out)... got to get the right kind of keyboard

CC welcome

[Kerry Perkins]

Enrique, I love the little buffies - the colors on the head of the drake are out of this world! You did a good job of capturing those colors and controlling the whites. The image is underexposed overall and you have plenty of headroom in the whites so you could bring the exposure up a bit and mid-tones quite a bit. These birds are quite a challenge with the full white and full black in the same scene.

I took the liberty of making a quick levels adjustment and a bit of USM. For the levels I brought the right-hand slider in a bit and took the middle slider a bit to the left. To polish this one off I would suggest a round of noise reduction or blur on the background.

Looking forward to more, keep them coming!

[Enrique Patino]

Thanks Kerry! I agree. I guess the secret to good photography is attention to all the details at the same time. I was happy to learn how to do a linear burn, and should have kept going with the rest of the necessary tweaks to get the most out of this one. Next time! At least I know how to check a few more boxes (as in done!) while I develop my workflow. Steep learning curve...

[Kerry Perkins]

Enrique, stick around and we'll do our best to flatten that curve for you. You're doing great, just keep at it.

[John Chardine]

Hi Enrique- I too love these birds (but I LOVE all birds so I guess that's not saying much!). But I really love Buffleheads. Nice work by Kerry and I like the repost. This is an attractive portrait of this species. The "rainbow" sheen on the neck feathers stands out very well. The background and foreground are pleasant and non-distracting. As far as improving the image at least one thing could be done at the time of capture and another can be done in processing.

This image and the thread in general is a great learning tool for the importance of light, and your statement "taken on a pond surrounded by trees late in the pm during a brief break in cloud cover" gives it away. You did a great job with exposure and you were saved by shooting in the late afternoon, but you could have made your life a lot easier in post-processing. An essentially black and white bird presents a huge challenge to the sensor to render both the shadows and highlights. In sunlight this problem gets worse because the light is so much more direct and not diffused by the clouds. Even "late PM" sun can be very bright and direct. In cloudy conditions, the light is scattered which acts to light up the shadows and reduce the contrast or dynamic range of the image. So even though the scene may have looked more attractive to your eye you should fight the temptation to wait for the sun to come out and do the exact opposite! Now, I'm generalising here and maybe the cloud cover was very heavy and you had no light until the sun came out, but I hope you get my point.

The other thing I'll mention is that for my taste the crop is a bit tight. You can fix this is post-processing by recropping or adding canvas.

Look forward to seeing more!

[Enrique Patino]

Thanks Kerry. I will keep at it.

[Enrique Patino]

Thanks John, I get what you are saying about the cloud cover and direct sunlight. In this case, the cloud cover had been thick and with f/5.6 i have to bump the ISO very high to keep ss in range for a good picture with such light. Only in late afternoon the position of the sun is such that it comes through a partial opening w/o trees in this little city pond, and in this occasion it happened that there was a break in cloud cover. But also, this is the 1st of these birds that did not seem to mind my presence and got close enough for me to capture it in the frame at a relative good size.

this is the unedited image, just converted from RAW using ACR as per Digital Basics. Now, I am not claiming correct exposure at time of capture ...

[Tom Redd]

Good discussion on this image and good image as well, Enrique. Exposure is always a challenge when you have a such extremes like you have on the Buffle. Thank you for posting this and for the discussion.