Wood duckling family

[Vess Velikov]

Hi folks, my first post here. It's about 2 years since I got into bird photography, and this is one of my favorite pictures from last year.

Canon 7D Mk II
Tamron 100-400
1/320
f/9.0
ISO 640

I can't really say how far away they were (other than "across the channel") but it's a moderate crop, and I went for a widescreen aspect ratio to match the horizontal layout of the row of ducklings and align the viewer's brain to that axis, so as to show them off. It was morning with a nice low sun lighting them up from the side, and a large amount of the background is in shade, which makes it partially drop out and makes it feel like a stage spotlight is on the ducks. (But not completely drop out, there's still patchy light to make it a nice-feeling frame.) Their positioning on the log like a platform, really makes it look like a crafted display and interacts interestingly with the beautiful serene mood.

Anyway none of this was going through my mind when I took the photo, I just pointed the camera and shot! So it's all after-the-fact interpretations, and I was really lucky to get all these factors put themselves together for me.

Processed in Darktable. Other than the standard things (denoise, sharpen) the main thing was to boost the mids and lows by a moderate amount, as it was a very stark image... and turned down the highs as the bellies of most of the ducks were blown out. And added a just a touch of saturation.




Hmm. It's a Flickr BBcode tag that the instructions say should work, and it shows up for me just fine (including on other devices). Anyway, here it is (hopefully) as an attachment instead. And thanks for the welcome!

 

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hi Vess, welcome to BPN. There is no image visible here...let me know if you need some help to get it to show. Looking forward to seeing it:S3:

Edit: Ah yes I can see it now with your repost. I merged the two posts, that way this has generated a thumbnail for better visibility in the forum.

 

[Dorian Anderson]

This look good, Vess. The elongated crop works well, and you got mom with an engaging and curious look. I think f/9 helped you here. You weren't
gonna get a super clean frame in this setting, so emphasizing the habit was a good move. I would try to desaturate the blues on her back. They look
funny/unnatural as is.

 

[David Roach]

Love the scene, the perch, the environment and those feathers at the bottom. Welcome to BPN and would love to see this posted bigger. TFS

 

[Daniel Cadieux]

I meant to critique your image while merging the posts. I agree with Dorian and Paul. Lovely scene, and from this size the image looks to have nice IQ (image quality). You can post up to 1920pixels n the long end (up to 600kb). The habitat looks good despite being busy - it's typical Wood Duck living quarters. The babies are too cute. Leaving the floating feathers intact was a good decision too IMO. Maybe a touch more contrast could help here as I'm feeling the darks a bit thin, but still looking pretty sweet. A strong start!