Ring-necked Duck (m)

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image at Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida early December last year. The duck is named for a chestnut colored ring around the neck which is rarely seen and not prominent in most images. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED image captured at 400mm
1/2000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV +1/3 ISO 800, camera supported by a monopod
Post processed in Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC 2019 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped for composition and presentation

[Doug Brown]

Good eye contact and nice sharpness. I wish the light wasn't so flat, and I'm sure you do too.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Hi Joe, What a beautiful capture of this equally good looking duck. I like the overcast light bring out the subtle changes in feather color, and detail. Nice to see the finer feathers so clearly on the head. We also see a portion of his leg under water.

Geoffrey




http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu (http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu)

[John Mack]

Nice detail and that yellow eye is great. I think i can see the foot through the water.

[Isaac Grant]

I like this one much more than I thought I would from the thumbnail. Nice fine feather details and I really like the calm feel to the image. I agree with Doug that the light is flat but I think you could spruce this up a little more. I did the following. In curves I put the white point dropper on the whitest spot of the white crescent that borders the black chest and belly and that brightened up the image a touch. Then I used Viveza and added a few points of brightness and saturation. Then used a 25/25 NIK tonal contrast/detail extractor recipe on the bird to bring out some more details in the darks of the bird. Subtle changes but I think they make a difference in the final presentation.

Also I wanted to thank you. I wound up picking up a used 80-400 ii. Have not used it in the field yet but with my few test shots it seems great. Nice and light, having the zoom is great for certain situations and the VR seems excellent. I was able to easily get shots in the house at 1/25 that were tack sharp.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice classic pose of this duck. I'm not crazy about the reflection, but there is not much you could do there.

[David Cowling]

Good eye contact and nice feather detail. The light wasn't the best but still a nice image.

[Joseph Przybyla]

I like this one much more than I thought I would from the thumbnail. Nice fine feather details and I really like the calm feel to the image. I agree with Doug that the light is flat but I think you could spruce this up a little more. I did the following. In curves I put the white point dropper on the whitest spot of the white crescent that borders the black chest and belly and that brightened up the image a touch. Then I used Viveza and added a few points of brightness and saturation. Then used a 25/25 NIK tonal contrast/detail extractor recipe on the bird to bring out some more details in the darks of the bird. Subtle changes but I think they make a difference in the final presentation.

Also I wanted to thank you. I wound up picking up a used 80-400 ii. Have not used it in the field yet but with my few test shots it seems great. Nice and light, having the zoom is great for certain situations and the VR seems excellent. I was able to easily get shots in the house at 1/25 that were tack sharp.

Thanks Isaac, I see the subtle difference. In Lightroom I think adding contrast and vibrance would get close to yours. I will see what I can do. Thank you for viewing and commenting.

[Arthur Morris]

Me thinks that even the repost has a yellow cast caused by the greenish water as with Krishna's grebe image above ...

with love, artie