Oswego Harbor

[Copy_Kot]

After shoveling more snow off the roof, I drove over to the harbor for these. I’ll try to ID them, some I have never seen before so if I get the ID wrong I hope Paulnj will correct me.

Mute Swans…



Mallards…





Lesser or Greater Scaup(?), they look very similar…



Mr. & Mrs. Oldsquaw(?) my first time ever seeing them…



the boys…



Common Goldeneye(?) my favorite from the day, and my first time seeing one. This image does not do this beautiful bird justice.



And, a little snow on the brake-wall…



For some reason all of my histograms from today look absolutely horrible, I’ll try to figure out what I did wrong and go back to get a better shot of the goldeneye.

Thank you for looking.

[Copy_Kot]

Here's an edit of the goldeneye, I was trying to bring out some of the green in his head using 'curves.' Did I go too far? I had to crop/clone out the ice that was on the upper left.

[Loupey]

Great variety there. Although I've never personally seen them, I like your oldsquaw and goldeneye. So I can't comment on the color accuracy here. But your second image seems to have color cast to it (red in the water, blue in the whites).

Seems like you encountered strong cloud cover during the shooting. Sometimes it's better to just enjoy the scene and return to shoot another day.

thanks for sharing

[Loupey]

Hey, Copy - I hope you didn't get the wrong impression with my last post. What I was trying to say was that not all lighting conditions are condusive to pulling out the best colors out of our subjects. And no amount of PP is going to match the colors that good lighting brings

[Copy_Kot]

Thanks Loupey, and lol, I understood what you were saying. There were a lot of people there having there pictures taken with all the snow which kept the birds pretty far out in the water. By the time the goldeneye and oldsqauw where close enough to get a shot it was already getting dark. If it wasn't my first time seeing them, I wouldn't have bothered.

I'll definitely go back when the light is better.

[paulnj]

You ID's are correct and that's a greater scaup due to head shape. Oldsquaw are now called long-tailed duck though .

[Speed]

"For some reason all of my histograms from today look absolutely horrible"

Ice, snow, and lighting can play havoc with exposures. Also, the wrong white balance can throw things off (BTDT!).

Overall, it looks like you had a productive day. But you can have the snow and ice! We complain when it gets below 50 here!

:-D

[Copy_Kot]

Thank you Paul and Speed, I went back this afternoon to an undisclosed location to look for more goldeneye's. The light was about the same as yesterday but it was worth going. These are far from good but anyway it was very cool to see this so close to town

[paulnj]

Great Find Indeed!