Hooded mergansers in-flight

[Duane Angles]

Went out to Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City this afternoon to see if the ducks were back. This is one of the images I got just before sunset. This is handheld.


Canon 1D Mark IIN
Canon 500mm with 1.4x TC
1/800 sec, f/7.1
Mode: Av
Metering: Evaluative
Exp comp: +2/3
ISO: 400

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely image of the pair, Duane. Positioning is great and nice to have one with wings up and one down. Could maybe have used a slighty higher ISO and increased + exp comp to get a bit more details in the male's dark plumage. The sharening halo is quite prominent and there is some streaking(?JPG artifact) in the upper part of the sky.

[Lance Peters]

1 Up 1 down looks good,nice light. agree with the comment about the halo and the streaking in the sky.
:)

[Doug Brown]

There's a lot to like in this one Duane! In particular the opposing wing positions, with one set fully down and the other fully up. Also like the fact that you got a male and a female. You were on the right track when you dialed in + EC, but I think you needed a bit more of it. The idea of bumping your ISO is a good one; you could also have opened up a little to get some more headroom. You may be able to improve the image with some post-processing by brightening up the birds a bit.

[Daniel Cadieux]

This is a tough one as the male is quite dark, but the female looks great in the golden light with her easier to expose plumage. I also love the one up one down wing positions - very cool! I wouldn't mind a tiny bit more distance between the two of them (not much, maybe doubling the space between the male's bill and the female's wing if you don't mind doing such work on your images).

[Stu Bowie]

Not knowing your species over there, its great to see these wonderful ducks. Love the sweet light on the female, and well captured to get both together Duane.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Excelent couple shot! Great poses, great light, grat detail! COngratulaitons!