DUCK!!!

Taken at the Wetlands Trust at Arundel -




Looking at this picture it looks to me as if the duck has been stuck on. I have a number of other pictures which give the same impression. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in anticipation.

Do you shoot RAW?

Mike

When you cut and paste you have to "feather" the edge

Actually your not doing anything wrong, its just a trick of the light and the way our eyes see things.

Is it to do with the shortening of the perspective on a high zoom length? Perhaps a smaller aperture might increase the perspective, and help to pop the main subject into more context?

Roger, I think it looks good though only a bid to bright but the rest.
I do see what you mean with stuck on but that's all has to do with the DOF and the OOF of the reed, if you darken the reed a bit your eyes aren't draw so much to it and if you frame the photo differently it would also help. Just let us see a bit more what's around the duck.

Thanks for the replies. The picture is a crop from a jpeg, although I have it in raw as well. It was taken with a Sigma 150-500 at 500mm, F11.

When I say it's wrong, what I suppose I mean is that I don't like the effect.

This is the whole picture -

[IMG]http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc222/Oggy3323/Duck-1.jpg[/IMG]

The longer the focal length the samller the DOF will be.
An even smaller aperture and a short focal length would have resulted wider DOF. you can also back focus so that more of the background comes in the DOF but you need to be carefull to keep the duck in it but that's why there is an optical preview on the camera.

Personally I'd expect this to be a combination of the brighter colours against the drab background and edge effects in the JPEG conversion which is why I asked if it was RAW or converted in camera.

If you have access to SilkyPIX try running it through that from the RAW file and see if it looks better. I have had this effect and as I recall I controlled it better within either Silky of Photoshop.

I agree with you that it's not doing your image justice as it is.

Mike

I had a go at it with Silkypix (not very experienced). First attempt I simply developed it as is, and the result was very similar.

On the second attempt, I took the sharpness and contrast down a bit and messed around with the colour, and got this

[IMG]http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc222/Oggy3323/Duck2.jpg[/IMG]

which is a little more pleasing to my eye.

Still sitting on top of the picture isn't it. Let's hope someone more expert comes along!

I think it's just an optical illusion with teh bright colours against the less vivid background.

Mike

I find it quite difficult getting good photo's with reeds as a background. I don't think the lighting on the head of the mallard helps.

Hope you don't mind, but I had a play with that last JPG you uploaded and this was the best I could do:



I'd prefer to crop it more to the left so that the duck is moving into the image a little more, and tighten the crop - but that would need to be done with the original.