The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I sat on the bank in the tall grass at sunrise for awhile watching for muskrats, and a pair of mallards landed and swam near me. This guy was very close and the light was right for his iridescent feathers to show nicely. I like the soft light here before the sun hit the pond.
Specific Feedback
The white on the tail is blown out, but I saw this in a number of other shots of mallards so did not do much to it in post-processing.
Great angle on this guy, Debbie. I love the head turn and the hunkered down look. I was going to mention the white on the tail. To me it does look a bit out of place with the nice detail everywhere else. I don’t know if you can do anything with the raw file, but I think it would be worth a try.
I do see what looks like a masking issue right at the rear of the duck where a feather sticks up (see image below). There’s just a bit of a lighter fringe on either side of it and it looks as if the inner triangle might be a little lighter than the outside which would happen if you didn’t get it our of the duck mask and raised the exposure of the duck. Very minor issues, that require no one in the general public would ever notice.
@Dennis_Plank I tried to get some detail back in the white tail but didn’t have much luck, it just made it look grey. I definitely see the masking problem and will rework this in the next day or so. Thanks!
A very nice pose and reflection, with excellent detail and color and a very pleasing BG! I’d probably just clone out the tail feather sticking up – it’s a bit attention-getting. The whites look blown but it’s a small detail. Did pulling the Highlights slider down reveal any detail? If so, pull Shadows up and add a little Clarity for midtone contrast to undo any resulting flat look. If Highlights doesn’t pull out anything, you can try doing a virtual copy of the raw file and pull the exposure way down and see if there is detail there. If so, a linear profile might let you recover it. Sometimes a linear conversion will bring out even better tonalities globally, but if not you could put it on a top layer and mask out all but the white area. It can be tricky to make it look natural and you can’t go very far with it. You may be up against the dynamic range limitation of a small sensor.
Oh what a great example of this species. Both Dennis and Diane have some excellent advice.
If you do another edit, it is a good idea to show your edited image side by side with the original image. That way viewers won’t have to scroll up and down to search for the edited image. While doing this, it is also helpful to edit the title of the post to indicate there is a revised image. Here’s what I suggest:
At the bottom of your post, click the pencil to edit the post. You are then taken to the edit mode of your entry. If you want the edited image to appear first, then I would suggest placing the cursor at the very top before the original image. Otherwise, just go the line after the original image and upload the new image. Since you are in edit mode, you can add new text before/after the images to make sure viewers know what the original and edited versions are. You can also edit the title of the post and add something to indicate there is a reworked or newly edited image. I hope this helps.
Nice pose you managed. I like the water droplet from the bill. My only nit is the blown tail feathers. Not much you can do to fix it in post since they appear to be blown.
HI Debbie
You gave us a very nice looking head-on photograph of this Mallard. The low angle, head turn, eye contact, reflection, coloring and feather detail are great. All the rest the comment are helpful t think about.
Peter
Sorry for the delay. I used a linear profile to try to get some detail in the blown tail, there’s a little more but I didn’t want to overdo it. I also fixed the triangular area between the tail feathers that I missed before.
@Kris_Smith Thanks! That’s all I could get in the tail.
I’m using Auto ISO for wildlife now (I used to do only manual) and I notice that I’m getting more blown-out elements. Should I be using Auto ISO for birds? I forget to use the exposure compensation dial in the excitement…
Hi Debbie, I have Fujifilm cameras too and use Auto ISO for birds. I usually set the exposure compensation dial to -1/3 for birds. It seems to work most of the time. Although for birds in flight I set it to +2/3 since the sky is so bright the camera underexposes…
The reworked tail actually looks pretty good, there’s a touch of detail now. It’s a little gray instead of white, you could probably adjust that without blowing it out again.
I really like the low angle of your shot. And the pose. Well done.
Hi Debbie. I’m still in the manual camp for birds. As long as you don’t have rapidly varying light, I don’t see any reason for an automatic adjustment. I do try to keep a close eye n the histogram and keep the overexposure indication turned on. While there’s not any significant detail in the tail of the repost, toning it down made it blend in to the image better.
Obviously, @Dennis_Plank 's full manual works well for him as he has some of the best bird images on the site, but I’m firmly in the auto ISO camp with @David_Bostock. I simply don’t understand the point of not using auto ISO. One of the three variables has to float and in bird photography aren’t we most concerned about enough shutter speed to avoid motion blur and a low f-stop to get a blurred background? With today’s camera sensors and NR software, ISO concerns seem a thing of the past. And, as Dennis pointed out if the light is varying your settings will need to be changed. Many times I’ve been shooting against a dark background when the bird takes off against a bright sky. The truth is, it would be extremely rare to be able to set all three variables at some ideal for the scene, one of the variables has to float. End of rant.
