Drake Mallard

[Robert Smith]

I was set up on a river off of the Chesapeake Bay just after Christmas shooting canvasback imagery. There were a few wigeon, mallards, ringnecks, etc. mixed in. Every now & then an eagle or peregrine would flush all the waterfowl loafing there in front of me, which would give me an opportunity for flight shots.

The canvasbacks & other diving ducks would fly out 1/4 to 1/2 mile & then swim back in, but the puddle ducks would fly back in - often circling a time or three.

I felt like I had gotten a decent shot of this mallard drake, but was pleasantly surprised to see the band on his leg when I started working up the image! (I had gotten a banded canvasback earlier in the day, but I saw the band on him as he was preening before I shot...). (The band is the reason I posted over here in hand-of-man...).

This shot was cropped from a horizontal image to a vertical image, so there is a good bit more room to work with... Nikon D70, Nikkor 400 mm, f/4.5, 1/1250th second, ISO 200, handheld.

Comments and suggestions appreciated. Thank you for looking.

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice shot Robert. Was wondering re hand of man until I saw the band. Have you tried a landscape crop giving a bit of space for the bird to move into? I would be tempted to level the horizon in the background or crop it out as it seems to be sloping down to the right

[Lana Hays]

Robert
I, too was wondering why this image was over here until I saw the band. It's a nice image of the mallard. My first thought about this image was I'd like to see it as a horizontal. If you shot a series you might want to see if you have a different wing position that might show more of the pattern but you do you some of the top side showing in this one.

[Robert Smith]

Hello Tony & Lana, many thanks for your comments. Oops, don't you hate it when you do something stupid...:o:o

Yep, the horizon is crooked. This wasn't the version I had meant to post. Oh well, it is pretty close... I think the duck looks even better on the version cropped correctly - the horizon is flat & the drake is tilted up slightly more...

Yes, a horizontal crop looks good too, but there is something about the vertical crop that I really like, even though I can't tell you what it is because I can't verbalize what it is...

[Jim Neiger]

Hi Robert,

I'm ok with the vertical crop. I would like a horizontal crop too as long as it included the land in the bg. Sometimes frozen flight images against a smooth sky bg just have a sort of sterile appearance. The horizon in the bg gives a sense of scale and reality. If your horizontal versions had this removed, perhaps that is why you are attached to the verticle presentation. I like the colorful duck, but the wing position is not ideal. A full dorsal view, wings all the way up, or wings all the way down would have been better.