Autumn Wood Duck

[Jim Buescher]

Photographed this morning at North Chagrin (Cleveland). Quite often the ducks would be too close to focus on (I left my wide angle and macro lens in the car:(). This duck is still closer than I wanted and the image, which is FF, could probably benefit from some more space all around.

40D
500 f4
f7.1 @ 1/160sec.
ISO 400
Flash E/C -1 1/3

[Randy Stout]

Jim:

Nicely done. I was there last weekend, and know what you mean about too close. I was sitting down once and had to shoo a couple of hens out of my lens hood :), they were so close.

Very good exposure and blend of fill flash. You have held the whites well here. Sharp.

Where exactly were you shooting? Obviously not off the board walk, with this nice low angle.

Your self critique is spot on. It is too tight, and you need room for the virtual feet and more headroom.

In looking at my images, I find the proportions become distorted enough when shooting really close, that the images weren't quite as appealing as those further away. This one still looks quite nice.

Congrats. Oh, did you use auto WB or warm it up a bit?

Cheers

Randy

[Jim Buescher]

Jim:

Nicely done. I was there last weekend, and know what you mean about too close. I was sitting down once and had to shoo a couple of hens out of my lens hood :), they were so close.



Where exactly were you shooting? Obviously not off the board walk, with this nice low angle.

Thanks for the C&C, appreciate it. You can access the far end of the pond that is currently closed for construction via the path off the parking lot. There is a deck over the water but you can set up right on the shore at the water's edge like I did. I had three drakes within five feet of me within minutes of setting up. I think the ducks congregate over there because of the construction at the other end.

I made no adjustment to the WB which was set to auto.

[Mack Hicks]

I really like the golden background and the ripple effect. Sets off the gorgeous wood duck.

[Daniel Belasco]

Always love these guys as they never look real in real life.
Beautiful bg.
Thanks for sharring.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely image with nice details and killer BG
TFS

[Morkel Erasmus]

full frame has certainly delivered much detail. could use more space but I quite like it as presented. lovely colours and exposure...