So this time of year we get tons of swans and other water birds massing on our bit of river. Many dozens of many types, but these guys are the most noticeable and boisterous at times. They aren’t called Trumpeter Swans for nothing - they are loud and very vocal, almost 24/7 since if I wake in the night I can almost always hear them. You can tell a Trumpeter from a Tundra swan by the edge of dark pink/orange on the lower bill. Tundras don’t have it and are slightly smaller.
Most of them spend their time down river from my yard where there is a long strip of an island. But now and then I notice them coming up and so I went out and got ready. I stood behind a waist-high shed and waited. Even though I was half-hidden, they didn’t come closer than mid channel, but with the 100-400 I could get them to reasonably fill the frame. At first, they swam peacefully and were pretty boring. Then these two exploded in action for about 5 seconds and then it was all over. This is mostly a lucky shot.
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So…it seems I have to be vigilant and ready for any crazy thing they might do. Looks like I should have cranked the shutter speed more. I had the ISO room for sure. Any other advice or thoughts from experienced bird photographers?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Handheld while leaning on a waist-high shed - kind of acted as cover although I think they were completely aware of me. I was maybe 30 feet from shore.
Lr for the 16:9 crop initial curves adjustment and some texture added. Then into Topaz Sharpen for some tightening up and then back to Lr for a little bit of a linear gradient.
Thanks, @David_Bostock - that’s actually the opposite shoreline. There is still some ice over that way and some snow. I thought about cropping, but wasn’t sure if a more environmental approach would be good. I put a second shot above. They roost on the ice overnight.
I haven’t tried to specifically. I think I might have started with a linear profile, but if not I can certainly reprocess. Running through Topaz Sharpen pulled detail where I needed it - I masked out a lot of the water. Any thoughts about good techniques for doing that?
Hi Kristen
Very nice action and the 16 by 9 re-corp bring you right up into this interaction. I played with the wings in DXO, using a local control point and added their clear view and micro contrast, this did bring out more detail, but the wings started to look off white. I DXO I had a reading of 235 to 245 across the wings. (maybe next time setting a higher EV to help control the white?)
Peter
Well I’ve tried a few of the ideas here to pull detail in the wings and it just isn’t there to be pulled.
Insofar as the EV goes, I thought that the higher the more overexposed it becomes. I did the 1/3 of a stop +Exposure Compensation to make sure the whites were white, but maybe I should have left it as the meter thought it should be. Turns out I started with a Camera Natural profile which is the Camera Style I have set in my Wildlife shooting mode. Swans are hard.
