Swimming in place - Mallard

[Daniel Cadieux]

Here is the reason for the title: Behind the duck is small drop in the river, creating a mini rapids. The duck is paddling just to stay put and not fall down those rapids, but the strong current is pushing some water against the duck's front...creating the illusion of it swimming forward. No panning needed here :).

Canon 40D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exp, eval metering, 1/160s., f/6.3, ISO 640, natural light, handheld, just about full-frame (cropped slightly bottom and left).

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w98/dancad/tn_Mallard_2947-01.jpg

[bill kominsky]

Great eye contact feather detail and color Daniel, thank you for sharing.

Bill

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great angle and details, I also like the composition. Maybe a bit more saturation?

[Jonathan Michael Ashton]

I think it is just right, colours, saturation detail, composition, water - lovely shot

Jon

[Tony House]

Nice low angle and the colours and feather detail look great.

Nice work.
Tony

[Doug Brown]

I like the details and think the saturation is just fine. I would move the duck's head further back in the frame though.

[Arthur Morris]

Interesting and thanks for the explanation. Well done as noted above. The bright area above the bird bugs me a bit. I believe that toning it down would be an improvement.

[John Ippolito]

Great comp, detail, and saturation looks perfect here. I didn't really notice the bright area above the mallard until I read Artie's comment. Lovely portrait.