Bufflehead

This female Bufflehead came close enough for a reasonable shot. Taken around 11 AM with sun low in the sky. A cold but clear day, something we haven’t had in my area in about two weeks or more. I like the water.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Any

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Any

Any pertinent technical details:

Iso-500, 100-400+1.4 extender at 560 mm equivalent, F8, 1000th, manual exposure, Fujifilm FT3, handheld sitting inside a portable blind, high tide, 60% full frame, Adobe camera raw 11, Topaz AI Clear, Topaz Adjust, TK sharpening action at 5%

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
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Nice head turn, David. I also like the water in this one.

I always have a difficult time with this bird because my exposure gets fooled and the white feathers usually get blown out.

I took the liberty of running your image though my workflow. Thank you for allowing me that privilege.

CC19, compensate focus shake on eye with PS filter/sharpen/shaken reduction, expanded eye, ran Vincent Versace mico adjustments action for feathers and eye, ran 8bit Lee Varis CMYK Black action to adjust out saturation in black, TKV6 dodge & burn to add depth to water ripples, adjusted crop to golden spiral, uprezed to original size with AI Gigapexel, ran 8bit PS render lighting to add feather brightness, ran ACR to filter lum chroma noise, finished image with Nik, CEP darken/lighten center to focus eye attention on this wonderful bird image and away from the water.
Basically a bunch of tweaks…