Shot this a couple months ago in Maryland. This is nearly full frame, with some canvas added to the left side of the frame. I desaturated the blues, sharpened the bird, and reduced noise on the BG. All C&C welcome.
Repost:
Techs:
D850
500mm f/4 II, handheld
1/3200
f/7.1
ISO 500
A nice BIF shot with excellent detail in the Wigeon.
Excellent, Lyle. The detail in the bird is outstanding. I like the angle of the bird, though when I first looked at the thumbnail, it took a second to click.
Nice technical shot of the widgeon. Not the most appealing wing position, but hey… you don’t get to choose that. I find the background on this one, like one of your prior posts to be over saturated and draws away from the subject.
Good job on the detail. Nicely placed in the frame. Less than ideal wing position. The main issue for me is the oversaturation of the background although I do like the texture of the out of focus water.
Thanks all. I desaturated the blues in the image by almost ten points prior to posting. Here is a repost with them desatured by another 17 points.
I’ve been curious what others would say about the wing position. I have found widgeons very difficult to capture in the stereotypical fulls wings up or full wings down position. And even when you do, their body winds up in a somewhat strange position. That’s been my experience, at least.
I liked this shot due to the sharpness, and it sort of makes the widgeon look like a missile, although it isn’t my favorite wing position either. It also seemed fairly representative because widgeons are some of the smaller, faster ducks around.
Hi Lyle: For me, even your second post presents the water as over saturated. I grabbed the second version, dropped the saturation even more, used a curves adjustment layer and removed some blue from the blue channel. I created a mask splitting the image in two horizontally to easily see the delta between the adjustments I made and your second post. Guess if you like the blue water that blue, that’s up to you, but as an honest comment, it really draws away from the subject.
Thanks, @Keith_Bauer. I have never had to desaturate something this much, and I’ve def. never needed to use a curves adjustment layer to do so. As I experiment with that, I keep adding too much yellow, but it’s an interesting technique. I do wind up landing pretty close to yours by desaturating the blues another 26 points. Appreciate the effort. I’ll have to keep it in mind for photos from this location.
Yes, if you push the blue channel too far you’ll get a yellow tint as blue/yellow are color opposites. Since this also has a good amount if cyan, you can use the red channel and push it up to remove some cyan. A little of each might be a nice answer as well.
