One Happy Duck

[Ed Vatza]

After watching this American Widgeon swim back and forth in front of us today on one of the North Shore (NJ) ponds, my wife and I decided to name him "Yakkie" since he was just yakkin' the whole time.

I have a tendency to want to crop to a fixed size like an 8x10 crop or an 11x14 crop. But often when I do, I get comments that I need to crop from the top or crop from the bottom. So this time I played around with the crop. I did two crops that I like. This one and one I am going to try to sneak in below of I can that shows the full reflection in the water but moves the duck to the upper part of the frame. Your thoughts? (Assuming I can do it!)

Image made with Canon 50D and 300mm f/2.8L IS lens w/ 2x TC; tripod-mounted

1/500 sec @ f/7.1; ISO 400; 0 EV; FL 600mm (EFL 960mm)

[Ed Vatza]

Second crop.

[Randy Stout]

ED:

A very nice looking duck. I prefer the top one, re: crop. Wish for a tiny bit more room on the left, but still very nice. Very sharp on my monitor. Head angle is just the tiniest bit away from plane of camera, but I would be pleased to have this one in my files.

Would like to see more of him if you have them.

Randy

[Grady Weed]

I like the reflection and would prefer the second post. I too always fit the image to a close normal frame size. I have but a few custom frames.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose, and I prefer the first image. I wish it would swim toward you and it looks a bit washed out on my monitor.

[AJ Kunkel]

I am a sucker for this silvery reflection type of image. I like the sharpness and the expression. I would love to have seen him with his head/body turned a little more toward the camera.

[Fabs Forns]

This one made me smile. Happy feeling to it. I much prefer the second crop.

[Ed Vatza]

Thanks everyone. Your comments and feedback are much appreciated. I'm still/always working on improving my technique with birds. All I can do is state the obvious - birds are a lot tougher than flowers!!! :)

[John Chardine]

I like Ed! Love the colours and this is yet another example of how the BG is so complementary to the bird colour. I like the first post because the second looks like the ceiling is too low. To my eye and judging from the water ripples I would rotate a little CCW.