Run Silent, Run Deep - Juvi common loon diving for lunch

[Randy Stout]

The juvi loon was imaged three years ago on a northern Michigan lake. He and his sibling were having great fun diving under the boat and popping up on the other side. The went back and forth multiple times. Not very easy to predict which direction they would come from, so I was thrilled to actually capture one without cutting it off, and with reasonable quality, considering it was underwater, the light was low, etc!

D300 70-300VR f/6.3 1/100s ISO 800 AE hand held

Post: CS5. The image was quite flat, so worked with different methods of teasing out a little more snap. Ended up using a combination of Color Efex Pro tonal contrast, detail extractor, and several rounds of sharpening.
I did extend the canvas in front, to give him more room to dive into, and a smidge behind him. The white spots in the water are air bubbles coming out of his feathers. I thought about removing them.

I thought it was an interesting peek into their underwater world, where they 'fly' with uncommon grace and beauty.

Advice and comments always appreciated.

Cheers

Randy

[James Fuller]

Very unique capture! Image has a monochrome feel to it. Did you use a polarizer?

[dankearl]

Very cool shot Randy, I have attempted these with zero luck.
You must have had some clear water with no reflection!
I think your PP brought this out as well as can be done without an underwater camera.
Excellent.

[Don Lacy]

love the image Randy to bad he didn't let out a stream of bubbles as he dove that would have put the image over the top

[Arthur Morris]

Love, love, love it. But the bird needs to come in from a corner. And you could go a lot more on boosting the contrast. I did that for the repost in a variety of ways, did a bit of clean-up of fluff around the loon's body, and pretty much ruined the BKGR . I am sure that you could do much better with the BKGR .

[Landon Starnes]

Very cool and unique image Randy! I like the comp in Mr. Morris' repost...

[Dan Behm]

Randy,
Interesting image to capture underwater like that, You got them Loons zeroed in. Nice job!

Dan

[Sachin Saraf]

Wow...you really captured this one uniquely...TFS

[Ofer Levy]

Unique and interesting! I haven't done it myself but heard that using a polarizer filter is the way to go with such images.

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice! good to see something different.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Randy, I like your title, and its always great to come away with something different. Your high angle shows of the swimming pose very well. Placement wise, moving him more to the URC as Artie has done does work better.

[allanrube]

I can't add anything that others haven't said already. Like it a lot, especially the minimal colors. They do invoke a very quiet image.

[Arthur Morris]

I keep thinking about this one. It is special. Not sure if anyone has suggested that sharpest focus is on the loon's back..... (Not to mention that it is amazing that camera focused on the bird!)

[Doug Brown]

Very cool frame Randy! I like the direction Artie took with his repost.

[Melissa Groo]

Amazing image, Randy, don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this. I really love it. I think Artie's repost kicks it up a notch. Thanks for sharing this fascinating view into their underwater world.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks everyone for your input and Artie for the repost. I think the compositional change works very well.

The natural color of the juvis is all soft greys and light browns, very little black, so I tried to keep the contrast to a level that matches that, with a little softening from being underwater. The original file was much lower contrast than my post.

As mentioned, this was taken three years ago and never processed until now. The circumstances that allowed the creation of this image were rather unique.

It was a bright day, dead still water, and the bird was captured in the shadow of the boat as it swam towards the boat. I had tried a polarizer, but since the birds were coming from all different directions, and the time window for getting off the shot was probably much less than a second from the time they entered the shadow to the time they went under the boat, it just didn't work. If there was a predictable pathway, and you could just set the polarizer for that particular sun angle, it might have worked out on the open water (no shade from the boat) but I doubt if it would have been as good as this turned out. Plus, the further away from the boat, the worse the DOF issue became, so shooting almost straight down when just diving under the boat at an angle downward, worked well.

I don't know if I will ever get all these factors to line up again. I have tried over the past two years without any luck.

Cheers

Randy