He was far away and I was using a 600mm lens, light was not ideal and shutter priority.
Nikon D500, 150-600 lens, shutter speed, 1600 sec, F6.3, ISO 2800.
I did crop all 4 edges. Background appears noisy. Can it be corrected and or should I play around with it. My editing software is Photoshop CC.
I like the artistic background with the waves in the water. I think I got the focus right on the eye this time and not the body.
Hi Norma: I love the looks of the water, and it doesn’t appear too noisy to me. If you wanted to reduce it, you might try selecting the duck then inverting the selection and running some noise reduction just on the background. If you create a new layer first, you can always fine tune it by adjusting the opacity of the layer after you do the noise reduction.
It does look like you nailed the focus on the eye, and I like the way the light falls on it. A few things you might consider doing: Dodge the face a trifle to put more emphasis on it, since it’s mostly shadowed. Add a little canvas back on the left to give the duck a bit more room in front. Add a bit more canvas to the bottom and a bit less on top. This last is to help minimize the downward angle at which you took the shot. When you shoot down, having more room underneath counteracts that feel and when you shoot up the reverse is true.
Norma, a stunning image. The detail is excellent here. I really like the surrounding swirling water too…
The ideas outlined by Dennis are solid ones and not nits at all. They are just good thoughts to possibly improve the finished product…
Excellent image - tack-sharp, perfect focus, lovely swirls in the water, and a bit of a reflection.
It’s tough to get the focus perfectly on the eye - or even the head - with a moving critter!
Great job!
Sandy
Thank you Dennis, I can’t wait to try these suggestions. I may have some extra photo area as I did crop edges. The shooting down and up technique makes sense too.
Definitely looks like you got the head/eye in focus. It is a beautiful bird, and so is the water.
I agree that the BG is pretty noisy. I reduce noise in my images just as Dennis suggests. It works really well. I’d also add a couple suggestions for post processing. Once you open the image in Photoshop resize it to 1500 pixels (or whatever size you prefer for posting), select the bird, and use smart sharpen at an amount of something like 90 (depending on the image) and a radius of 0.2 or 0.3 (these values will vary depending on the image). Then, as Dennis suggests, invert the selection and run some noise reduction on the BG. Otherwise, as to this photo, the whites near the tail are pretty hot, and I think the image overall would be much stronger if the bird’s face were fully lit. If you can when in the field, try to work with the sun directly behind you to avoid indirect lighting.
