Duck Shooting, More Thoughts

Ring-necked Duck Pair

I was able to stack two shots of this pair swimming.  One of the two shots had the male's eye sharp and the other had the female's eye sharp.

Canada Goose

I found no Ring-necked Ducks on the third day.  I was and am still thinking about lessons learned from the ducks.  I just sat on the bench with my camera and practiced aiming the camera.  I normally look through the view finder with my left, dominate, eye.  This presents a problem when shooting action.  I am trying to switch over to viewing through my right eye so that I can open the left for aiming.  I learned the feel of where I place the view finder cushion on the eye brow.  I experimented on the geese to see how it looked with my left eye when the camera was aimed properly.  I could close my left eye to see through the view finder to check my self.  

I also practiced being aware of when the sun was diffused by a cloud and when it was striking the the white directly.  I practiced dialing a negative EC, exposure compensation, in during direct contrasty light.  I found that since I use shutter priority for shooting ducks, my camera dials, automatically, down the ISO setting when I set a negative EC.  

In post processing, I need to watch the whites to be sure they are not over exposed.  I carefully set the exposure in ACR, Adobe Camera Raw, to keep detail in the whites.  Later in my work flow, I use Curves to adjust color and contrast.  I have found that I like the auto function for curves to achieve a neutral color rendition.  Auto is not good for ducks with white where I have carefully protected the whites.  It generally blows them out negating all my careful work in ACR.  I sometimes do it manually in curves or I use the white dropper and sample a blown out area of white.  It will bring back detail there.  

I did not shoot many shots of the geese.  I still was not finished with the 800 shots from the shoot two day prior.  I just practiced aiming and being aware of the light.

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