Hooded Merganser

[Josh Clark]

From a trip out to Kellogg Bird Sanctuary up in Michigan a couple weeks ago. In a perfect world I would have loved to been lower on this guy. Anyone that has been to KBS knows you have a fence to contend with there around the pond/lake. This guy gave me a workout though. The pond was very difficult to shoot, only few pockets of evening light and this guy seemed to avoid them all most of the time. Great little place to visit though.




Canon 7d, manual, 1/250sec @ f/9, ISO 200, 700mm (500f/4L + 1.4x), fill flash at -2, taken at 3:20pm

[Randy Stout]

Josh:

It seems like everyone is getting pictures of Mr. Hoody but me! Oh well, will just have to work at it harder!

Great crest position, good job on whites, use of flash in that dark area, foot up, clean water.

Cheers

Randy

[Ofer Levy]

Sharp with good detail. A bit big in the frame and shooting angle slightly high but still nice. Here is a repost with some boost in colours to make it pop.

[Sid Garige]

Killer pose and excellent eye contact Josh. Ofer's repost takes it to next level.

[Don Lacy]

Sweet water and nice pose and angle I also like Ofers repost and I would lighten the black a bit more to even pout the tonalities

[Stu Bowie]

Ive always been amazed at the shape of these guys heads. Good job on the exposure on the head, and I like the detail on the beak. Ofer's repost does add some pop.

[arash_hazeghi]

great handsome specie, you may want to recover more details in the darker areas. nice low angle

[Gary Esman]

Nice raised crest Josh. Exposure looks pretty good here for this guy. He certainly does not make it easy. Glad you got him in clean water.

Gary.

[Jim Buescher]

I know you worked for this shot and it paid off. He seldom had his crest raised so good job in capturing that, I also like the "sleepy eyed" look. Your shooting angle is good considering the fence that was there.

[Josh Clark]

Sharp with good detail. A bit big in the frame and shooting angle slightly high but still nice. Here is a repost with some boost in colours to make it pop.

I do like the repost Ofer, though I think it is a bit too much, I would've toned it down just a tad. That being said, would you mind sharing what you did to on the repost so I could try my hand at it? That did help bring out some detail in the darker areas. I have other photos where he is evenly exposed but the crest was either halfway up or completely down. Wanted to show the full crest one first. Look forward to hearing what approach you used in the repost.

[Dan Behm]

Josh,
I would say you did very well, this guy certainly was not cooperative and the conditions were difficult as mentioned... I think you created a great image from what you had to work with, Kudos to you!

Dan

[Robert Holguin]

Excellent shot. Real nice pose and eye contact, Exposed well and Ofer's repost brought some great colors.
Well done.