Mallard Duckling Huddle

Gallery: AvianPosted July 9, 201271 views3 comments

I watched with some surprise as these ducklings went away from the mother on the same rock and formed a huddle. It wasn't a cold morning. Perhaps they did it for security. The only problem for me was that it was in deep shade.

I often use my 1DMk IV at ISO 1250. However, for this shot I needed a small aperture to try to obtain as much DOF as possible. Also, these little fellows were not very still and I had no tripod. For the conditions I needed the shot would have been significantly underexposed at iso 1250.

I ended up using an iso of 3200. The image did require some NR along with my usual exposure adjustment and sharpening. Of course it is not the same type of image that we would obtain under better lighting conditions. However, I like the image.

I'll be interested in your comments.

1D Mark IV, 400 mm f/5.6, 1.4x TC, hand held: ISO 3200, 1/800s, f/13, 0 EV (Manual), image is 9.8 MP (61% of the 16 MP of the 1DMk4).

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by May Haga on July 9, 2012 at 3:55 PM

Lovely shot Steve. I like your choice of depth of field which allows all the ducklings to be sharp. Looks very good for ISO 3200
May

Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on July 9, 2012 at 5:13 PM

A nice grouping and a charming image. Results look good for the high ISO, although you've lost all detail in the dark areas and some detail overall from the NR. I'd consider desaturating or maybe darkening the water a little behind the ducks to make it less distracting.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on July 10, 2012 at 8:47 AM

Thank you very much, May and Richard, for your comments. I was surprised that ISO 3200 could provide this attractive a shot. I did already lower the exposure on the bg. It probably could stand more. I feel comfortable with the detail here. Although NR at this level does cause some decreased detail, it's possible to regain much of it later in the post processing. I think the loss of detail in the dark areas that Richard pointed out is the main deficiency in the image. I returned to the original raw image and discovered considerable detail in those areas. The detail was retained right up to the last few steps in my post-processing that had to do with exposure adjustment to try to make the ducklings more prominent. I'll watch for it next time I process this image. My conclusion here is that post processing for a high iso image such as this needs to be somewhat different than a more conventional image. It's more than just increasing NR and proceeding as usual. Also, note that in this case to obtain a lower noise level, I chose to properly expose at a high iso value in camera rather than use a lower iso and increase exposure later in post processing. [I found the article relevant to this approach and quoted in my previous post so useful that I will repeat the citation again here for those of you who have not seen it:
http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/post-processing-articles/quick-tip-the-real-secret-to-avoiding-noise/

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments