Preening loon

[Dan Busby]

There are many fantastic loon showings on BPN and they have all served to motivate and inspire me. This past summer some loons were gathering near a cottage in central Ontario where I stayed for a few days. I commandeered a leaky old canoe to see if I could finally get a shot at some loon photography. I tried three different mornings. Mostly the light was too harsh, the waves too large, the loons too shy, or something else. But on one occasion things sort of came together where I could get fairly close and the bird was occupied and unconcerned by my presence. I was able to lie low enough in the canoe to get a pretty low angle and a decent background. This is one of the results. It's nearly FF. Only basic processing required. A few bright water highlights were toned down or cloned out. All C&C welcome.

Canon 7D, EF500mm f/4L, ISO:400, f/5.6@1/400, EC: -0.7, AP, AI Servo AF, evaluative metering.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Wondeful preening pose, and great job with the exposure. Very intimate low angle. Lovely green water and BG (although too bad about the dark spot touching the head). I do wish there was more room below and left. The image has a magenta cast...for the repost I simply added 10 points of green in PS "Color Balance".

[Dan Busby]

Thanks Daniel. That magenta cast was right out of the box in the RAW file and I tried to tweak it in PP, but obviously not quite enough. There is no more room at the bottom of the image so I would have to add canvas - might give it a try.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Dan, very nice work. loved the pose and calm water. agree with Daniel's critique. I think a mild round of USM on the bird will make it even better.

[Arthur Morris]

Nice soft light and colors and an interesting pose. Was the black REFL from another loon? Sharp. Not sure about the WHITEs. The biggest problem here? Head position--the bird's head is rotated a bit too much towards you. The top of the head is closer to us than the bottom. Preening images are almost always best when the bird's head is perfectly square to the back of the camera.....

[Dan Busby]

Artie - the black spot is a reflection from a dark spot on the lake shore behind the bird. I could probably do some Ps work to reduce or eliminate it - just hadn't noticed it to be an issue. And thanks for the HA tip - another one of those little gems you freely hand out . If you could have seem me trying to get sharp images while laying flat on my back in the canoe with my left hand over the canoe side trying to paddle it into the right orientation to the bird while holding the camera in my right hand and resting the end of the lens on my knee as a brace. Quite a show.

[Mital Patel]

I bet Dan you would have done almost every possible exercise to get this what you said here.
Beautiful image and Dan really boost the impression of greens.

I feel white's could go more pure. As even with this bit yellowish there's hardly any detail we can see ..

And yes the upper dark patch touching loon's head is quite a distraction and can go off easily.

AIA i really like the quality of an image real razor sharp.

[Arthur Morris]

Artie - the black spot is a reflection from a dark spot on the lake shore behind the bird. I could probably do some Ps work to reduce or eliminate it - just hadn't noticed it to be an issue. And thanks for the HA tip - another one of those little gems you freely hand out . If you could have seem me trying to get sharp images while laying flat on my back in the canoe with my left hand over the canoe side trying to paddle it into the right orientation to the bird while holding the camera in my right hand and resting the end of the lens on my knee as a brace. Quite a show.

You needed to move the canoe to your left to put the dark area in the top left corner. It is a distraction because it is centered over the bird...

[Randy Stout]

Dan:

As an occasional loon photographer, I appreciate the challenges they present re: exposure. Considering your shooting platform, I think you did very well. I have never been comfortable shooting with big glass out of a canoe.

Good comments from the crew. I would prefer the bird be slightly more to the right in the frame, and as Daniel said, with a bit more room below, which would be easy to add here.
Excellent shooting angle, very intimate. Good color correction by Daniel.

I have lots of loon preening poses, and they are always a challenge, to get every thing just so as far as alignment and then the biggest problem is the often roll over enough to show that brilliant white belly!

All in all, very nice, with some room for tweaking to make it even better.

Thanks for sharing, look forward to more.

Cheers

Randy

[Grace Scalzo]

This image to me is why we keep going back. You clearly put in alot of effort in creating it and with the tweaks suggested, it can be a fine image. But sometimes it's just the one thing (here the head position) that I bet will have you back in that canoe next summer trying for better. At least that's the way it is with me.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose, low angle and nice water colors. well done