A very foggy morning At Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Southwest Washington. Dennis Plank and I went down there early Saturday morning. It never really cleared the entire day so processing is a little bit of a challenge. Lower light levels required higher iso most of the time of the light took a chance here with a slow shutter speed.
I really like the drying wing pose that you captured. The detail and the DOF are working very well for the shot. I’m not sure, but based on the reflection I think it needs just a bit of clockwise rotation to level the shot. I usually make sure that the tip of the bill is exactly vertical with its reflection to level my floating bird shots. Very minor though and for that matter it may not need adjusted.
Sweet, David. That machine-gun shutter caught the head turn-I missed it. Excellent job removing the fog and you have superb detail. You might remove the patch of water weed at the left wing tip. With this pose, I think this would work centered as well.
That’s an interested pose for the reflection. It really catches my attention. I might want a bit more room on the right but very minor personal preference.
I love these birds, too. You’ve got a pose that I don’t think I’ve seen before. IQ and DOF are great, especially given the conditions. It looks to me like you still need a little more clockwise rotation on the repost. Also, I’d clean up the water a bit more to make this image really sing.
The wing orientation and reflections are amazing. I’m wondering you might experiment with having the bird stand out more from the background, i.e. soften or darken it.
