Quite fascinating watching these eiders gather speed skimming on water
Specific Feedback Requested
Anything goes
Are the highlights on the bird too much ?
Less contrast ?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
I love the angle at which the bird is traveling and the splashes, Karl. I also like your low point of view. On my monitor, it looks as if the whites are blown and the bird seems a bit on the soft side. If you can get the focus to lock in and the exposure down (white birds are really tough, particularly when it’s on the top) you’ll have real winners with this kind of action and composition.
Great take-off action with the pose and water splashes. Can you bring down the highlights any?
Thank you @Dennis_Plank and @Allen_Brooks
Photographing black and white birds is very challenging!
I reprocessed the file - lowering the highlights - did lose some fire in those droplets - but still OK
I also used Sharpen AI for the bird itself
It was quite cloudy - shot at ISO 5000,
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Hi Karl
You have a great low angle, fast action take off here. The photograph is over exposed by at least one stop.
Peter
Spectacular image Karl, great looking bird, and nice action with the spray in the water. And the sweet low angled light ain’t too bad either. Nicely done.
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Hi Karl. You improved the image with your adjustments. I looked at your shooting parameters, and I think you could have reduced the shutter speed by half and used it for more depth of field. You could also have reduced exposure by a stop as noted by Peter and used that to reduce your iso correspondingly.
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You’ve received some good feedback on the image. Yes, the highlights were void of detail from overexposure. Even if they were not technically blown, there was no detail. Contrast was very high in the original, better the second. Crop? Looks like maybe it could be a large crop.
I agree with Dennis on shooting parameters. Even at 1/1000 or 1/1600 there would not have been any significant difference in action stopping and that would have allowed a much lower ISO for better image quality in the end.
thanks Peter - u r right - 2/3 stop - good news is that whilst processing I wrongly increased the exposure by 0.6 stops, so I was able to dial back and recover detail
Thanks for your valued opinion Keith - I wrongly increased the exposure by 0.6 stops in post and hence by dialing back I was able to get back a fair amount of detail
Unfortunately I beg to differ on the shooting parameters somewhat - ISO , yes - 3200 plenty. Shutter speed, no - that’s the minimum necessary to get the droplets
Overall great feedback from a number of you - many thanks
Crop ? NO - this is full frame with no crop - D6, 600 + 1:4 TC
Thanks @Ed_McGuirk , @Peter , @Keith_Bauer , @Dennis_Plank
This has been one the best feedback I have had - much appreciated - hopefully one day I will get it - shoot to the right but dial back in post processing