Cinnamon Teal Drake

[Kirk Benson]

Decided to take advantage of a beautiful sunny morning here in SoCal and see what was happening at my favorite duck pond. What a nice surprise to see David, Tim, and Glenn out there again... and very nice to meet Gail Bisson and Ann Pacheco. You really have to have your head on a swivel as the ducks come and go from every direction... so we were all yelling "left" or "right" as soon as we saw some movement... we had a fun morning. :S3:

This was my best frame of the morning, it's a pretty heavy crop so the detail isn't great... I'm posting mine now BEFORE the others post theirs... because then I won't want to post mine. :bg3:

D500 ~ 200-500 f/5.6E ED VR @ 500mm ~ 1/4000s f/6.3 ISO 400 Manual ~ Group Focus Mode ~ Processed in PSCC

All C&C are greatly encouraged and most appreciated.

Kirk

[Randy Stout]

Kirk:

Great colors, with the orange/brown of the bird playing so well with the blue water. Love the dorsal view, banking towards you, eye contact. The image has held up pretty well to the crop. The D500 does pretty well in that regard

I look forward to seeing more.

Cheers

Randy

[Bill Dix]

A terrific dorsal view with a nice flight angle. Looks good against a nice water BG. I did notice what seemed to be a large crop before I read your post, but you take what you can get. In this case I'd take it in a heartbeat; it's a species I don't have a single decent image of. Sounds like a great morning.

[Isaac Grant]

Looks great to me and I'd be thrilled to get a shot like this. Beautiful frame with the head angle and topside banking pose.

[Juan Tolentino]

Wow, that’s a lot of talent in one place. I love the image, absolutely gorgeous. Thank you for sharing.


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[Raybel Robles]

The top side view is beautiful showing off the colors and the duck gave you a great HA aswell. I do see the heavy crop even before reading the description. Noise is a bit apperant all over, maybe runing a noise reduction on the BG and some selected areas on the bird can improve the image.

[annmpacheco]

That’s a gorgeous shot and a gorgeous duck Kirk, super fast but you got em! Love the pose and those sweet colors and red eye! Very nice to meet you and thanks for the directional assistance!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great banking pose, and the colours are spectacular. I do see that the IQ has suffered from the large crop, but man, quite a visually rich frame!

[Glenn Pure]

Superb colours on this lovely bird, Kirk. It has held up well to a hard crop (by how much did you crop?), especially for the smaller sensor of the D500. Shows off how well that camera/lens combo works. The pose and ventral view are very nice and good to see a bit of colour and sheen in the speculum - always a bonus. If mine, I'd be tempted to drop the contrast a bit on the background although the bird still pops quite well now.

[David Salem]

It was great seeing you again Kirk and I hope you can get out a bit more this year. Sure was a fun morning shooting with everyone and it was great calling out the action as they came smoking in. These little buzz bombs sure are a challenge so great job capturing this one.
Keep your head up and if you ever want to shoot with me there is always an open seat in my truck for you. See you soon

[Tim Foltz]

Kirk, sweet shot my friend, nice seeing you again, I wish you the best this year.
Beautiful colors and sweet BG.

-Tim

[arash_hazeghi]

pretty sweet banking pose, light and BG Kirk. the Iq has suffered a bit from crop, but you nailed everything else. Just have to keep doing it until one passes by really close.

TFS