Long-tailed drake

[Milo Burcham]

Found this cooperative duck (and the sea otter in the wildlife forum) over my lunch break today!

Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D
Date/Time: 2008:01:10 13:50:05
Shutter speed: 1/500 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: +2/3
Flash: External E-TTL High speed sync
Flash exposure compensation: -2
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: Continuous: frame 1
ISO: 500
Lens: EF600mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x
Focal length: 840mm
AF mode: AI Servo AF
Image size: 4368 x 2912
Image quality: Raw
White balance: Auto

Long-tailed duck
Prince William Sound, Alaska

[Paul Davey]

The sense of movement in here is great and I like the ripples around the immediate body of the bird but I find those peculiar blue streaks in the upper right distracting. I am not sure what they are... Other than that the composition could have been better by placing the bird (or cropping) a little from the left and a little from the top so the bird will more effectively appear to be heading diagonally into the lower right corner of the frame which gives it an enhanced sense of direction. The bird itself is sharp and well lit with a focused eye. The out of focus tail forks add to the interesting scene in the deep, refreshingly blue and cool water.

Paul

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the angle and eye contact. I wouldn't mind if the 4 dark stripes above the head were not there. If you clone this should be relatively easy to fix.

[Glenn Bartley]

I'd prefer more of a profile type image. But this is still pretty cool. I like this view of the long tail.

[Rick A. Brown]

This is really cool. Reminds me a whole lot of the kinds of image I try to make.

I do wonder if fill flash was a good idea here, you were already at -2 and it looks a tad overflashed. That's one minor nit though.