The Male Duck

[Kiran Poonacha]

Inspired by BPN members I too went duck hunting last week, Made some images of the Shovelers who are on thier way back as winter is over and the summer is setting in.

I first made a tighter crop, but decided to post one with more space around, hope it looks ok.

Spec: 1/2500, F 7.1, ISO 400

canon 40D + 500mm +1.4TC

[Jim Fenton]

Excellent exposure and sharpness.

Personally, I feel that the subject presents as to centered left to tight and too high in the frame overall.

The foreground looks as though you might have closed it in as I think I see repetitive patterns in the reflection, especially below the tail?

Was the water truly this smooth or did you blur it? With no texture to it, it looks blurred and not real to my eyes.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Thanks Jim, sure will try the tighter crop, In regard to the FG I have not done any blurring only half noise reduction, The patterns and no texture is only because the water was calm and the low angle, the lens was just about 1 inch above the water. i have just attched the raw to show.

[Stu Bowie]

Kiranbhai, lovely green sheen on the head, and I like the overall sharpness. Good low angle, and I like the effect from the reflection.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

beautiful low angle,eye contact,pose,details!

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Kiran, good to see a duck shot from you. Nice low angle. really need it for shoveller which is such a "short" duck. You have treated the whites well. That is bound to make some other parts dark. You can try recovering them but I think it might lose some contrast punch.

A little crop from below and more space on top might look better...but I like it a lot as presented too.

I have been trying to get such a shot as well...unfortunately the shovellers don't come within my 400mm reach.

[Trivedi Vatsal]

Amazing shot in all aspects sir! Fantastic image as always!

[Harshad Barve]

Excellent image Kiranbhai as usual
TFS

[Jim Fenton]

thanks for the RAW file screen capture :)

Interesting.

Not directed at the OP but as a general comment....any time I try to sell an image like this in print because of the low angle, it gets passed over and I invariably get asked why I did so much PS work on it. People just aren't used to seeing things in a way they don't see them in real life I guess.

[Rick Dobson]

Beautiful capture. Love the angle, sharpness, lighting and BG.

[Don Anderson]

Love the greens and sharpness, low angle.. wonderful shot :D

[Manjesh Lingamurthy]

Hi Kiran

This is a difficult bird to expose, but you have nailed it. The blurred bottom is really competing with the bird and you need to crop it a little from the bottom, so that viewers eye, goes directly to the bird, rather than from the blurred bottom than to the bird. Leave the top space as it is(All these comments are for the first picture you have posted).

[Ofer Levy]

Fantastic shot! Superb tsharpness and exposure control. Would move the bird slightly to the left and down if possible.