Hoodies!

Hooded Mergansers are my favorite ducks…hands down…bar none. There are lots of more colorful ducks, but none, to my eye, as elegant. Especially when the males are displaying, with the hood full and back. They are not easy to photograph at the best of times. The contrast range is just beyond most mediums. It certainly strains the limits of your average digital sensor.

This was taken at –.7EV to give the white hood a fighting chance. I then brought the whole image up a bit in Lightroom. Even so,  the white is right at the edge of burn.

Depth of field was just sufficinent for both the foreground male and the female. The background male was out of reach. The PhotoSocpe is essentially fixed aperture. You work with what you have.

Zeiss PhotoScope 85FL at 1600mm equivalent field of view (40x). 1/1400th @ ISO 100. Metered at approximately f5.6.

As mentioned, Fill Light in Lightroom to bring up the darks, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Landscape preset.

From Latest Photoscoped.