Ducks In Flight
Jun, 2016Views
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johnjarvie
October 05, 2016
Thank you all for your kind words..... All I've got to do now is repeat it.
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Eddieuuu071
April 27, 2017
Thank you for submitting your wonderful photo to this challenge! I have added it to my favorites so I wish you best of luck in the final rounds!
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on an evening walk in the hills above Ardpeaton on the Rosneath Peninsula in Argyll on the West Coast of Scotland. I'd just taken delivery of my Canon EOS 760D, my first DSLR Camera. I hadn't yet learned how to set the camera quickly and just happend to have it in automatic sports mode when these ducks took off from the track in front of me, they luckily gave me a bit of warning as to the direction they were going so I was able to track their flight. The camera was continuously taking shots and I was again lucky that this one had them framed well. (There is a third duck in the full photo but it is higher and to the right of these two and I felt that cropping the image down to just these two gave it much more impact.)Time
It was a May evening. The sun was beginning to go down and the golden hour was just starting, and it was early enough in the year that the dreaded Scottish Midges were not about. (Midges are a pin head sized flying insect that descend on you in clouds to drink your blood!)Lighting
Once again this was more luck than design. I was high on the hill with the setting sun over my right shoulder pretty much at the same level as me. The ducks were slightly above me an happened to fly towards the sun, which meant they were slightly lit on their undersides by the sun. This is what has brought out the detail in the underside of the wing on the trailing duck.Equipment
I was using my Canon EOS 760D with a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, hand held.Inspiration
I'd just got my first DSLR camera and zoom lens and was just out to see what I could achieve with it. I feel that I was very lucky to get such a good shot (in my humble opinion) so early on as it has kept me inspired to try and learn more so that I can reproduce this without waiting for lady luck to shine on me again.Editing
In the original image the Ducks didn't stand out too well against the background (their camouflage was working quite well), the the lens was wide open (f5.6 - I have since learned that I get better sharpness with this lens at f9 to f11) and the focus was slightly short of the subject. I have been using GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), an open source program with loads of good tutorials on You Tube for processing and used the unsharp mask to sharpen the ducks. I then made up a mask for the ducks and darkened the background. Looking at it again I can see some lightness in the background surrounding the ducks and over the winter, when I have more time, I might revisit this and try again to see if I can get a better result, I've learnt some better techniques since I first did this one.In my camera bag
I like to keep it simple. I just have the camera and my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens. I've recently added a Sigma 17-70mm lens and I like to keep a mini tripod for if I want to take a long exposure shot. The big tripod I have is just too heavy and clumsy for carrying around and I only take it out if I know I want to use it. I'm looking at adding a lightweight tripod and some ND filters but I'm the kind of person who likes to research for months trying to decide which is the best for me, so it will take me a while before I add them to the bag.Feedback
In trying to get this type of shot again the big lesson I've learned is not to practice on a live subject as things just happen too fast for you to learn your kit well enough. I now practice in the woods where there is a lot of clutter from tree branches. The shots are very uninspiring but they let you see the depth of field and sharpness you are getting in the image from different f stops, so you can work out the sweet spot for the lens. Once I learned that I seem to get the best sharpness between f9 and f11 I set the camera up with a single center focusing point and practiced by moving the camera quickly to a stationary subject and taking a shot. You can learn how fast the lens focuses from this and can check if your camera tends to front or back focus. Then move onto slow moving objects and learn to track them.... don't even take a shot, just try to keep the focusing point in the viewfinder on the subject and learn how to move your body smoothly. When you are taking shots don't stop tracking the movement or you'll find you get many images of your subject moving out of frame. Lastly I use center spot metering. As you are generally looking up towards the sky when shooting birds and you want the a correct exposure on the bird rather than on the sky, it is easier to do something with a blown out sky in post processing than trying to recover detail from an under exposed subject. Also in the early morning and late evening with the sun behind you, you have a better chance of the sun lighting the underside your subject.
