Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

[Joseph Przybyla]

Still waiting for my camera to come back from service at the Nikon Repair Center. The only thing keeping me from screaming in frustration is it is cold in Florida (at least if you live here full time) and predicted to get colder at the end of the week. So here is another image from the past that I have revisited and revised. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 70-300mm F/4.5-5.6 VR ED AF-S shot at 300mm (450mm FFE)
1/2500 F/11 Matrix Metering 0 EV ISO 2500
Post processed in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop Elements 10
Cropped for composition, part of out of focus duck cloned out

[Raybel Robles]

Very nice image. I like the colors and the fact of the whistling duck in the back have a down stroke wing position. All 3 ducks are in great focus which is not easy to do. I would be tempted to sharpen the ducks just a tad more. The BG is really nice as well, not too in focus to be a distraction but enough to see what it is. Good job.

[keith mitchell]

Joe all three birds look nice and sharp and at iso 2500 these eyes of mine do not find any noise, very nice looking image.


Keith.

[David Salem]

Great that you caught all three of them in focus and you got some nice wing positions and HAs on them too. I like the BG and the sky although I might consider cloning out the sticks intersecting the lower duck.
Not sure about the sharpening but it looks like you may have did some global NR on this frame and it has made the feathers look a little smooth. If you didn't then sorry and maybe a little more sharpening. Very nice capture!

[Karl Egressy]

I really like this shot, Joe. The three in the frame, having nice wing position really make a great composition.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Getting one is hard enough, but you went and got three in a frame. All good poses, angle and sharpness. Love the bg and the depth it adds. Very nicely does Joe. I'd evict the dust spot above the leading duck.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing, commenting and offering suggestions to improve the image. As they say, back to the drawing board. I went back to the original image and edited it using your suggestions.

David, I had used global noise reduction so this time I only reduced the noise on the underside of the wings and on the background. I also removed the out of focus branches intersecting the duck.

Sidarth, I evicted the dust spot that I had not noticed.

Thanks again all, here is a repost.

[David Salem]

Looks much better in the smooth feather department and the branches gone help out too. Now just bring the brightness down on the re-post and you are done. Somehow it got a bit brighter from the original. Nice triple play!

[Joseph Przybyla]

Looks much better in the smooth feather department and the branches gone help out too. Now just bring the brightness down on the re-post and you are done. Somehow it got a bit brighter from the original. Nice triple play!

Thanks David, very much appreciated.