Mute swan

A mute swan feeding. Very blustery conditions today, taken on the Ogmore estuary before it tipped down... Taken with a Canon 7D, EF 300mm f4/L and 1.4x TC. Tripod and gimbal. Aperture priority mode, 1/400sec, f/11, ISO 400, -0.3 EV. Imported with Adobe camera raw, processed in CS5. Shadow/highlight, curves and sharpening. NR with Nik Dfine. 10% crop to top and right hand side.

C's and c's welcome as always.

Thanks.

You have some wonderful feather detail in here, Paul. Whites and blacks are very well controlled. I think I might have positioned the bird slightly higher in the frame in view of the fact that it appears to be looking down, but that is only a minor nit.

David

Like it Paul... the rough water with the wind swept look of the swan are great... techs ... I think you could have worked at a lower ISO, the 300/4 + 1.4 is probably at its best at f8... you could have worked at ISO200, of course there could always be a very good reason for being at the higher ISO.... processing, Shadow/Highlight along with curves... I'm sorry but you should really only use one or the other, careful use of curves can and will give you a better result.... much better to use recovery and fill light in ACR ...

Thanks David, I agree that the POV was probably a bit too high, but I'd rather not wallow in estuary mud!

Phil, thanks for the comments. I used f/11 at ISO 400 to ensure I got the maximum depth of field at a reasonable shutter speed to freeze the water and bird in very blustery conditions. I disagree on the use of shadow/highlight in addition to curves. I only applied the shadow/highlight to the bird and I've used this technique on all my photos so far. I find that using recovery and fill light in ACR is not as effective at recovering the detail in marginal/harsh lighting.

Good detail in the feathers and water Paul and it looks nicely exposed.

Matt

No problem Paul, we all have our different ways of working, I tend to do as much as is possible at the conversion stage, in fact nearly all is done there since I now use Lightroom... I come from old days Photoshop (first version I used for work was 2) when a lot of the adjustments were harsh and very destructive... when I instruct in the use of Photoshop I always tell people that the ways I show are not always the best for them, but it gives them something to work from....

Cheers

Beautiful image Paul, like the ruffled look. Well seen and captured! Interesting to read the comments on the techs re processing. Its the only downside with digital I think that now there is some much scope to play around with the image and we all have different tastes with the finished article. Digital photography is more than clicking that shutter now-you have to be a computer software expert as well to get the very best out of the image. It took me a long time to embrace digital and I still have a lot to learn and this site is certainly a large step forward.
Nick.

However its " processed " its a very good picture Paul


The only nit I have is maybe remove the highlight.

Well, I'm afraid I'm going against the flow of comments on this one Paul. Whilst I do agree that you have some wonderful detail in the plumage I just don't find the image itself very inspiring. It also looks as if it could do with a touch of clockise rotation though I appreciate that with the bird on an angle it could just be illusionary. Just a personal opinion Paul and obviously a minority one.

Thanks for the constructive comments guys. Phil, thanks for your advice on the processing, I'm more of a post import process guy and I use bridge, but your advice is very useful. I'll have a play with ACR and try out your suggestions. So many ways to skin a processing cat! I do wish I could have got a much lower POV with this one, it was so muddy, I could just about stand up!