Nightski

A hooded merganser and a coot were hanging out in the icy waters this morning .. all by themselves .. no other ducks around. They looked miserable.
Canon 6D
Sigma 150-500@439mm
ISO 1600
F6.3
1/800 second exposure

The white background is snow covered ice. I had trouble leveling because it looks like a horizon, but it's a meandering line of ice. If you think I didn't get it right, please help with how to deal with a situation like this. A couple of my shots look REALLY crooked.

Hooded Merganser & Coot

(Download)

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

IMO the "water lines" of the merganzer and the coot define, fairly clearly, the horizontal, and the " meandering line" of the edge of snow and ice is not a confounding issue. I think you need have no concern about having "...got(ten) it right".

The "close company" being enjoyed by the two birds of different species is, Zi agree, curious, until explained by the limited amount of open water they have to share.

Why no download?

Dave

Leon S Loc: Minnesota

If you would have used an f stop providing greater dof you would have solved the problem regarding horizon. A second benefit would be the ducks in focus, especially the coot. However then you would have had to deal with the white of the ice flow but the ducks would have been more recognizable.

Nightski

Leon, I know .. I would have liked to stopped down the lens, but I was at ISO 1600 already. I could have upped the ISO, but then the image is degraded .. it's a lose-lose situation. So I chose to get the mergansers eye and very special headdress in focus. I was not crazy about my choices either, but they were what they were and it's not often you get this close to a wild hooded merganser.

Nightski

I will fix that, Dave. Sorry. No reason.

Nightski

Okay Dave, I've allowed download. Don't be afraid to be critical. I am very new at using my 150-500 and I do forget that when I get closer the DOF is lessened .. especially in the excitement of the moment. I'd like to tell myself it's all color noise, but honestly I'd rather hear what folks are seeing as far as focus and where focus falls off. This bird photography is going to take lots more practice, I know, but I was excited to get so close to this duck. It doesn't happen every day.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

You should know, with me at least, there's no worry about pixel-peeking any download. I always appreciate the download simply for better appreciation of focus.
Please note my signature line...a quote from the late Bruce Fraser, as close as the digital photography world can come to a revered guru re: image quality evaluation:

"When some photographers learn a print is digital,their concept of NVD changes to the length of their noses." Bruce Fraser
(I shortened it -but not substantively -from the original to meet the three-line requirement)

If there's color noise...or any other noise...therm I don't see it at NVD, so, it isn't there except in the minds of anal-compulsive pixel-peeping twits.

Where does focus fall off? Juuuuust this side of the mergansers waterline. Those shards of ice next to the bird at waterline are where the DOF ends just shy of the merganser.

I am curious about one thing. The reflections off the water droplets on plumage seem round, a bit OOF but not elongated as they would be had there been camera movement. There are, however some small/tiny white things all the same size, blurred the same distance from upper right to lower left. Are they wee snowflakes caught within the DOF and only seen against areas of darker BG? If so, I'd have thought that 1/800 sec would have stopped them in their tracks. Puzzeling. Hard to explain in absence of motion blur elsewhere.

Dave

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

Very nice, clear and crisp, image of the merganser. I find the image just a bit dull but a levels adjustment fixes that (I tried it). The coot is just not sharp enough to be part of the picture and too big to be ignored. I would have waited until I could get the merganser without the coot. Of course I would have taken this picture too just in case I couldn't isolate the merganser before freezing to death. The apparent tilt is not a problem, it is pretty obvious that the ducks are level. You might be tempted to increase the saturation but don't do it until you see the effect of the levels adjustment.

Nightski

Yes, it was lightly snowing. I really don't think it was camera movement as I had my OS on and I was at 1/800 ... if I remember right I was at a much lower shutter speed for the Green Heron and that was tack sharp. So .. the point being that I can hand hold that lens as lower shutter speeds.

Nightski

I did take lots of pictures .. inching closer and closer ... taking pictures as I got closer in case they flew. Here's another one.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-259829-1.html

You know, Don, I wish I had thought to stop down my lens to F/8 and up the ISO. I didn't though because:

I was so excited to get this close to a Hooded Merganser that I just didn't think of it right away.

My 32 gig card was full and I had to delete on the fly, and I had to take my hands out of my gloves to do it, and at 17F my hands got so cold it was hard to work the little buttons.

I'm a newb and I didn't consider the fact that the lens might be sharper at F/8 and make up for the ISO noise until I got home.

My other 32 gig card and my 8 gig and my two 4 gigs are full too ... geez I hate sitting in front of the computer downloading pics!

Nightski

If someone out there happens to be a anal-compulsive pixel-peeping twit, please critique my images. It only serves to make me better. I have a brain and a bit of self confidence, so I can handle it. I'm not saying it won't hurt at the time, but the hard stuff is what makes me better.

Shakey Loc: Traveling again to Norway and other places.

I'm guessing here but it may help you. I'm assuming you focussed on the dazzling ducks eye. (Great image.) You probably took an exposure reading at the same time. This means the snow doesn't look like snow (the exposure meter wants to see snow as grey) - you could have opened the aperture by one or two stops (+2 IMO) and got realistic snow. Now the ducks are over exposed, but you can rescue them in Post Processing. Plus if you had tried the Hyperfocal distance focussing technique you would have had both ducks and the snow in focus.
Focussing on the eye is an excellent way of adding impact on an individual, but two or more may require a greater depth of field.
Try it on your next trip out in the snow.

Nightski

Thank you, Shakey. This is really sweet. I will post in pp section to get help. As everyone knows I am terrible at pp, and I probably made this worse than it was. I would like to learn if I do that though ... not just get people to do it for me.

Nightski

Shakey .. went back today and did better. I think that duck in the duck shot is my merganser. :-( It's got the same tail feathers.

http://500px.com/photo/89637049/tough-day-by-sandra-nightski?from=user_library

http://500px.com/photo/89625109/riding-out-the-storm-by-sandra-nightski?from=user_library

Shakey Loc: Traveling again to Norway and other places.

Yep, you did better - no question. The group of swans is near excellent. In the foreground you can see detail in the snow plus it is almost white. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
If you had opened up another stop it could have been white snow, however, it was snowing and the lowering clouds reduced the lighting. So your chances of a superb image were reduced anyway. I really like what little sunlight there was filtering through the feathers of the white swan.
If you post process this image skilfully the white swan will have more impact. It needs to have more impact because it is the main subject of your photograph. What is now an excellent image could become an outstanding photograph worthy of hanging on anyone's wall.

The first image of the lonely duck: grey snow with no detail. Please don't be scared of opening up your aperture to get white snow with more detail. Experiment with this. The background is out of focus, it's part of the scene, we need more detail. You don't have to have blurred backgrounds in every photograph. (You would not tolerate a blurred background in a beautiful landscape.) Yes I know it was snowing, which can blur things anyway, but the lack of depth of field made it more obvious. Next time you go out study the snow, it has little shapes and shadows but overall it's white. Now capture that same crisp, white, snow in your image. Yes, just photograph snow!
Love your work by the way, it gets better all the time. Here's a brilliant French guy with some excellent training videos on post processing (check out all his free ones). His name is Serge Ramelli, you'll find him on Youtube and he has a blog.