Green-winged Teal Stretching In Liquid Bronze.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I found a male Green-winged Teal roaming a local pond, a pond that has diminished quite a bit the last couple of years due to invading reeds...and this has made the normally wary teal forced to swim closer to the boardwalk. Waiting patiently for it to come closer during its round of the pond it came to stop just in front of me...and of course only when I was composed in tight that it decided to do something interesting such as a stretch! I really like the way the image turned out though, an intimate view of the said behaviour.

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/320s., f/5.6, ISO 800, natural light, handheld (lying flat on the boardwalk), slightly cropped left and bottom, but canvas added at top as the top-most feather was just about touching the edge, a few spots in the water removed via spot removal tool, worked on the eye's highlight in the reflection...it was a long vertical streak at first (clone tool used).

[Randy Stout]

DANIEL:


Strong image with lots of interesting details, aided by the unusual pose. Well exposed. Very sharp, almost too sharp in some areas (cheek). Personal taste on that.

In a perfect world, a bit smoother reflection, but very hard to get.

Cheers

Randy

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent moment you have captured, Daniel Sir.
Great IQ, beautiful colors, nice details, tack sharp and beautiful composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Karl Egressy]

Fantastic details, sharpness, well framed. To me it would be a dream come true opportunity to get this close to a GWTE. Superb work, Daniel.

[Don Railton]

It is absolutely beautiful water Dan... and the bird is not to bad either..! I would soften the reflected highlite a little..

DON

[HadiAnsari]

Hi DANIEL
Great IQ, nice colors and details, Well exposed. Very sharp.
TFS

[Mervyn Marsh]

Hey really great photo, I have noticed on this forum the posters expect perfection :) well I guess this can only make you a better photographer.

Nice work,

Merv

[gail bisson]

This is one of these moments when your 100-400 would have come in handy!!
I really like the up close view of this skittish duck. You have beautiful feather detail.
Extra points for getting the male!
gail

[Joe Murphy]

Excellent detail on this close-up Daniel, BG colour works well, lovely shot.

[Bill Dix]

What an unusual pose. Worth waiting for. Lovely detail, liquid gold water.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Daniel - beautiful light and amazing, almost dizzying detail. It was worth the wait.

TFS,
Rachel

[Grace Scalzo]

Very pleasing....I love when a bird makes eye contact with you and then does this. To me, it shows that they are not afraid. Your exposure is perfect for those whites. If this were mine, I'd lighten the shadow in the copper water in the upper left.

[David Salem]

Great look at one of my favorite little duck. Like it all!!