Common loon

[P-A. Fortin]

I was on a paddle boat with my girlfriend this weekend, just wandering around, and then suddenly this common loon shows up about 50ft ahead of us, out of nowhere. I try to reach my camera bag, pull everything out, quickly setup exposure, lie awkwardly on the unstable paddle boat to try to be as close as possible to water level without dropping everything in there. I managed to take _1_ shot before the loon disappeared under water to reappear about 300ft away.

3 lessons learned:

- Always keep my camera gear ready in case an opportunity shows up.
- 400mm of focal length is so much, yet so short.
- A loon is faster than a paddle boat.

So here is the shot. Considering the distance and the focal length (400mm), I had to crop quite aggressively to pull this one out. I am still unsure how to express the crop ratio in a way everyone would agree on, so I'll just say that this is roughly 5% (I did say aggressively, right?) of Dan Cadieux's lasagna.

Taking everything into account, I tend to believe that the result is actually not that bad. I love the water drop under the beak. Of course this won't make history, but I wonder, in this situation, how could I have got a better result, whether it is related to taking the shot or post-processing the image.

I did boost the exposure a bit in Lightroom (+0.32), added a bit of saturation (+8), reduced luminance noise (+25, there was quite alot of it in the background) and added a bit or sharpening in the end (+20)

The specs:

Canon 60D
Av
Evaluative Metering
100-400mm @ 400mm, f/5.6
1/1000
ISO 400
0 EV
No flash (had left it in the car... )

Comments welcomed, and actually wanted.

P-A.

[Randy Stout]

P-A.

My favorite species. They can be a real challenge at times, depending on how habituated they are to people. I have had them swim up to and then under my boat many times on some lakes, and can't get within 100 yards of them on other lakes. It pays to ask around, check out various lakes looking for a 'tamer' individual.

In regards to your picture, you did a pretty good job getting low under the circumstances. I generally sit in the bottom of my boat, which wasn't an option with your setup.

The exposure is quite good, so easy to blow out the breast.

The main issue is the crop, which has really hurt your image quality. I would recommend trying a recrop with the bird smaller in the frame, esp. if there is any interesting environment in the BG, such as an attractive shoreline, etc. If it is just water, it won't be as effective.

It certainly is possible to do good work with a 400 mm lens and a crop body if you have cooperative birds. I normally shoot at between 600-1260mm depending on the camera and TC used. But, I keep a short lens on body sitting next to me if they get in too close.

Keep working at it. If you have an area that you can visit regularly, they will eventually get a bit more tolerant, but it will take a while to gain their confidence.

Cheers

Randy

[John Chardine]

Good comments by Randy and I totally agree. A recrop with some sharpening may bring the image up. Would love to see a repost.

[P-A. Fortin]

Thanks for the comments.

I will try a recrop and probably try to post the original as well, since this new crop might be worth some interesting comments as well. There is indeed some vegetation in the background. I am still wondering how I could try to use it properly in a different crop.

But this will have to wait another 24 hours. I promised to never broke the "1 picture every 48 hours" again :D

[Kerry Perkins]

P-A, do not get into the "lens envy" mentality! I have posted hundreds of images both here and on my web site taken with the 400mm f/5.6 lens and either a 50D or 7D body. You can do it! You have a good eye and are definitely on the right path. As for crop numbers, everyone understands "this represents 25% of the original pixels", or whatever is appropriate.

The biggest issue I see with this image is the sharpness. I realize that you have cropped away most of the pixels, but the ones that are left could be sharper. Keep at it, you will be rewarded!

[P-A. Fortin]

Okay, so Take 2 with the crop of the original image. I also cranked the sharpness up to 50 this time (I really need to spot using this randomly and start to learn how to use this option in a way that makes more sense). I also added a bit of clockwise rotation. This crop is now about 12% of the original. Still aggressive, but if I add more of the "rest of the image", I feel like the bird is going to become part of the furniture instead of being the focus of the image :)

One of your comment that I would like a bit of explanation about: when you guys say that the fact that I cropped the image 5% of the original hurts the sharpness. It is indeed 5% of the original, but it is not a zoomed version of the original. I mean, I understand that a resized version of the image, such as the one posted here, would look much sharper if the bird occupied more pixels in the original image. But looking at the non-resized version, looking at the full 18MP image or at the cropped one, it is still as unsharp as the original. It is just that in the original, the bird occupies a tiny spot on the sensor.

So I guess what you mean is that the fact that the bird is so small in the full image makes it less sharp than it would be if it had been larger (I could have said "if I had a 500mm f/4" but I'll try to stick to Kerry's advice and resist the temptation ) in the frame? Because otherwise, I fail to see how cutting away some parts of the image and keeping 5-10% of it hurts the sharpness.

Always keeping in mind that the image is not resized. If resized/resampled, then I obviously understand the damage to the image.

So this is the current result. I might post the original in another 48 hours in case you guys see a better way I could have framed it.




Thanks again for the useful comments. Highly appreciated.

[P-A. Fortin]

And this is the original, no processing

[Randy Stout]

P-A.

I far prefer the image in pane #6. The crop shows the environment, and isn't so severe the image quality suffers as much as the original post. The positioning of the small in frame subject at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal thirds lines is generally very effective.

Thanks for showing us what you had to work with.

Will look forward to future posts.

Cheers

Randy

[P-A. Fortin]

At first I prefered the original (pane #1). But the more I look at it (pane #6), the more I like it. Using the blurry background is something that actually did not cross my mind at first. I guess I'm learning something again here.

Thanks for your comments. I'm pretty sure the benefit is much more important for me to get your comments than for you to look at my experiments :)

[Randy Stout]

P-A:

I learn something from every image I critique, and you will too!

Keep them coming.

Randy