Wood Duck (m)

[Joseph Przybyla]

A couple weeks ago Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida had many pairs of Wood Ducks but the feathers were growing in. I went to the lake early Tuesday morning, most of the Wood Ducks now have gorgeous plumage. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 500mm F/5.6 VR AF-S ED PF + Nikon 1.4 III Teleconverter, camera and lens supported by a Oben carbon fiber monopod with a Wimberly MonoGimbal head
1/2500 F/8 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 900 Auto 1 WB, image captured at 700mm (1050mm 35mm Equivalent)
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2021 and Neat Image for noise reduction, removed a second catch light
Cropped for composition and presentation

P.S. Learn more about Lake Morton in the BAA Middle Florida Photography Site Guide that Artie and I co-authored. It is available at this link https://birdsasart-shop.com/the-baa-middle-of-florida-photographic-site-guide/

[Randy Stout]

Joe:

One of my favorite birds. He is looking quite handsome, and you captured a nice selection of the different colored patches.
Although the bird is angled a way a bit, the head angle is good.
I might consider a small crop up from the bottom. I often find that roughly equal canvas above and below balances nicely.

Cheers

Randy

[Kurt Bowman]

Great colors and nicely exposed Joe! I agree about the bird being slightly away from us isn't ideal, but it's still a nice frame. I also agree about the crop. I might take some off the bottom too.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful colours, what a handsome duck. I also think perhaps a little off the base but a tad more on the top.