Mallard in flight

[Alex Becker]

Hi all,

Heres a Mallard in flight from NJ. In post I added a bit of canvas to the top, brought up some shadows and darks, cropped about 20%, NR, and sharpened.

Camera: Nikon D500
Lens: 200-500mm f/5.6 at 500mm
Specs: 1/1600 ISO 450 f/7.1

Thanks for looking!
Alex

[Mike Hitchen]

A nice sharp image, Alex - well tracked.
I wish the head were a bit lighter so you had the texture between the head and neck but it does look like hte light was quite strong.

[William Dickson]

Love the look of this one. The bird appears to be flying out the frame. Well captured Alex. I like the detail you have, and also the movement on the wings which bring it alive.

Nice one

Will

[John Mack]

I like the composition here, nice background as well.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like this one too, he looks as though he is on a mission. I would be tempted to lift the darker areas a little more.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Quite a dynamic frame! My only wish would have been for the head to be better lit to bring out the iridescence. I love the curled feet, nice BG, and the far wing.

[Alex Becker]

Thanks all! I'll look into bringing up the darks a bit more.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Alex, I took the liberty to have a go at your image. To me the whites appeared to gray, and like Jon suggested the darks could be lifted. I also rotated the image slightly counter clockwise to level the clouds. To do the adjustments I used the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom to dodge the areas mentioned. I also raised the whites a bit with the White Slider. I think if you go back to your original you can really make this image pop. Nice image, thank you for sharing.

[Alex Becker]

Hi Joseph, thanks for the edit and taking the time to do -- I see what you mean now in re: to the whites. I always have trouble with those and go back and forth in the edits a lot. I'll go back to the original tonight and see what I can do. Thanks again all, really appreciate it