Blue Winged Teal

[Julie Kenward]

I hope I got the I.D. correct - it sure looks like it in my Sibley book. I've been watching the local lakes for the past several years and this is the first time I've seen these around - and so far I've spotted them at two different locations! I really like the way the colors of the water matched up with the bird's coloring.

Canon 40D, 400mm f/5.6L
f8 @ 1/400th, ISO 200
Daylight WB, Manual mode, handheld
Processed in ACR, CS5 & Nik Viveza
Used surface blur on the water to cut the noise but leave the edges in tact - a trick I've learned from shooting water images so much. I also burned and dodged a bit now that CS5 is getting better at the end result. I also cloned out the few hot spots from the water and did a linear burn on a patch of the body feathers.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Julie. Indeed a blue-winged teal. Tough bird to photography since the whites tend to be easily clipped, which seems to have happened here and linear burn, etc, are unlikely help much (at least in my experience with these birds). I would have preferred a lower shooting angle, although I imagine you were concentrating more on the water surface. regards~Bill

[Julie Kenward]

Bill, if the whites are clipped then I must have done it in pp because they were well within range when I threw the image into ACR. Could be my pp got the better of me.

And you're partially right on the angle. I had my good work clothes on and the ground was litered with bird poop so I decided against the best possible angle in this one case.

It's funny, now that I look at it on the monitor this morning it doesn't look much like what I thought it did last night. I think I'll go back and give this one another go.

Thanks for your thoughts, though!

[Ray Rozema]

Agree with William. Personal preference would be a tighter crop

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Jules, I have had this happen to me several times and that's why I started checking my saved jpegs with my web browser. Open your browser and select "open file" and open your image that you are going to post. Then use one of the utilities I mentioned in the sticky and check your whites. If they got boosted in pp, which does happen, you will see it immediately and can go back and tame them.

I like everything else about this image but the crop, I would take a little from the top. Love the colors!

[Stan Cunningham]

I would hate to see you take too much off the top, I love the placement in the lower right corner.

[William Malacarne]

I think I would try some off the top to make it into a pano....

Bill

PS

Julie I have found on many of my white birds that I work on as Tif, 16 Bits, ProPhoto RGB, the whites can be fine but after converting to jpg, 8 Bit, sRGB that there will be some clipping.

Bill

[John Chardine]

I like this Jules. For me the essence of the image entails the loose crop and the high camera angle as presented so I would personally not change this, unless you were after a completely different look. I have had the best success with this species in flat, overcast conditions.

[Paul Guris]

I see where you could take some off the top but I don't know that if that would make the image better or just different. I like the looser crop because the color and the texture of the water is just gorgeous.

[Julie Kenward]

Thanks for the feedback everyone (and Kerry I'll check those whites next time!) I did leave the crop looser and did place the duck lower in the frame because of the beauty and tonality of the water and the way it blended with the duck. John, it's supposed to be pretty rainy all weekend so I'll try to get back and get some good overcast images while the gettin' is good!