Mallard silhouette

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

40D. 400f5.6L wide-open. iso 400. 1/1250s.

Thx in advance for the C&C.

[Stu Bowie]

Kaus, I like your low angle, together with the suns reflection on the water. An opportunity well used.

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely silhouette. I think I would take a sliver off the top where it is a tad busy and distracting.

[DeanNewman]

The low angle makes this shot but, agreeing with Marina, the "sliver" of reflection at very top is destracting. Wing primaries separated from body/tail is a plus.

[Gary Hamilton]

Beautiful silhouette. The water is just mesmerizing, due to the low angle as others have mentioned. Agree with others about sliver at top but otherwise very nicely done.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Beautiful textures and colours in the water, and I agree taking a bit off the top would work. Just enough to eliminate the darker band up there. Did you need to darken the duck more in post-processing?...it just seems that in this situation a bit more light would have hit it for at least some faint details...

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Daniel, quick answer is yes. I usually have to darken the subjects in post as I try to expose to the right in the camera without clipping. I prefer using the curves in DPP to do that rather than contrast or shadows sliders. But, I do some slight movement on those sliders( along with exposure slider) as a starting point. Then move to the curves portion. I first work in luminance mode to set to set the black point and then adjust other part of the curve to brighten what I want to. Then, at times, I need to go into individual channels and set the black point. Its important to keep the sharpness slider at a lower setting...2 or 3 as per the situation.

[James Salywoda]

I love the reflected sun on the water and beautiful colors the low angle on the Mallard really make for a great composition. Well Done!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks for the explanation Kaustubh - that technique certainly got you the darkness you wanted. The image is highly appealing and I like it, but I think going not so dark in some areas (especially some of the edges) would work better. To my eye the duck seems too black for the overall scene lightness you have here. I'd be interested in seeing what the original looked like and see what could be done.;)

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

I see your point Daniel. Not a recent image...so I will have to dig through my external hard drive and work on it again. But thx for the suggestion...will do that definitely.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Kaustubh,

I like this image, well composed. Agree with the others on taking a sliver off the top and bringing back a little bit of detail in the mallard

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Hi KD
Pure and simple. I love the warm reflections. So simple an image and so expressive. well done!