2011 Waterfowl Season Behind the Viewfinder

With near record duck and goose counts in the north, the 2011 waterfowl season was supposed to be a great one for hunters throughout the flyways. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t cooperate with dry conditions in central Iowa and one of the warmest winters on record. This proved to make the season a challenging one but by spending countless dollars on gas and using the experience of the last 10 years, it turned out to be yet another rewarding season.

The Nikon D90 was with me on every one of these 50+ hunts that I experienced and was able to capture the scenes that we waterfowlers get to experience. The camera was equipped with the 18-105mm the whole season to capture wide angles while extension tubes were used with the lense to get close up’s of the drake mallards. With a wide range of lighting conditions, RAW was set on the camera along with apertures ranging from f5.6 to f14. ISO was kept at the lowest setting possible while still allowing me to capture the scene and subject.

After putting the files on the harddrive, ViewNX was used to change the white balance to either direct sunlight, shade or cloudy based on the particular image. On the picture control side of things, I either used the landscape-nature or monchr_g+con controls that I have made to enhance my images. If needed exposure, contrast, highlight and shadow sliders were used in ViewNX to finish off the images. The RAW files were then exported to PSE8 in the way of Tiff’s.

Some of the images had a large dynamic range so in ViewNX, I created copies of the original image and duplicated them by changing the exposure compensation. I then imported these files into EasyHDR. HDR software is able to take multiple images and combine them together to create a single high dynamic range image.

When opened in PSE8, I used the cloning and healing brush to remove items that I didn’t want in the image. The dodge and burn brushes were used to lighten or darken areas of the image if needed. The last step that I did in post was the use of adjustment layers and masks to create the color and black/white images. By creating new layers and using masks, I was able to brush out the color or black/white in certain parts of the image. This is one of my favorite techniques to use.

The D90 was able to survive another waterfowl season and I look forward to the spring to have it with me in the blind when I’m chasing snow geese.  For the spring, I will have another new piece of equipment to use, the Nikon SB-700 Speedlight.  With the flash having remote capability along with many other features, I’m sure to enjoy learning how to use it.

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