Northern Pintail, Critique requested.

[Thomas Cantwell]

1/320 f5.6 ISO 800 250mm
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7300/10917579085_c5bfd364f5_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/67260240@N08/10917579085/)
Northern Pintail (http://www.flickr.com/photos/67260240@N08/10917579085/) by Thomas Cantwell - intrepidbirder.com (http://www.flickr.com/people/67260240@N08/), on Flickr

This photo was taken on a very cloudy day around 10 AM in Central Park with a D7000 w/ 70-300mm AF-S VR f4.5-5.6. I laid down at the water's edge to get the camera as low as possible. Camera was handheld. 9 point continuous focus. Whole scene metered, taken in Aperture priority mode. Post-processed in Lightroom 5, with some cropping, Luminance Noise Reduction 70, Sharpening 65.

Thank you for viewing, any comments or critique will be appreciated. Don't worry about holding back ;).

[Richard Unsworth]

Nice detail, and water drops. POV good as is exposure/whites. Perhaps some off the bottom and rhs ?

[Thomas Cantwell]

Thanks, what is rhs?

[Richard Unsworth]

RHS = right hand side

[Doug Brown]

Like the eye contact and the water droplet. I'd consider a crop from the bottom to the place where the reflection of the dark part of the bird's head ends, and a proportionate crop off the right. I'd also warm up the color temperature a little.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Handsome duck, and you got lots of nice details especially on the flanks. Good job getting low. The biggest hiccup is the centered subject, the cropping options offered above are right on IMO. Even better would have been to compose in-camera as I like the current size of the subject in the frame. The image also needs a bit of counter clockwise rotation.