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Gary Esman
10-10-2010, 06:23 PM
7D, 500mm + 1.4 TC, iso 400, f/6.3, 1/640, Tripod. Removed the reflecting catch light in the eye any minor repair. Cropped for comp.

Shot yesterday evening. Appreciate any comments and critiques. Thanks for looking!

Gary.
Randy Stout
10-10-2010, 06:30 PM
Gary:

Well captured, perfect sun angle, all the colors are nice, but I really like the blue on the wings. Clean water! Crest is up nicely.
Whites look generally good, might consider a multiply blend mode on a selection for the white body band to see if you can tease up a bit more detail.
Good shooting angle.

Good one!

Randy
Tony Whitehead
10-10-2010, 06:31 PM
Lovely low angle, light, and water, Gary. You captured the irridescene well and exposure looks good. The image looks a little flat and it may be worth darkening the blacks a bit and nudging up the contrast a little.
Jeff Dyck
10-10-2010, 06:36 PM
Gorgeous image Gary - great colours and lighting. I was out chasing Wood Ducks myself this morning but certainly didn't do as well! I find the irridescent feathers on the drakes heads tough to photograph - this looks top notch.
Andrew McLachlan
10-10-2010, 07:47 PM
Hi Gary,

Nice capture and nice pose by wood duck. Agree with Tony on being a little flat otherwise.....perfect.
Daniel Cadieux
10-10-2010, 08:09 PM
Nice colours on this photogenic guy, and I dig the low angle. There is a small OOF white spot touching the back of the neck that you could eliminate (I would). Otherwise beautiful image!
Arthur Morris
10-10-2010, 08:44 PM
Excellent image and excellent critiques by everyone above. All that you need to do now is get the same image showing the purple cheek patch :) I love the water and the almost surprised look on the duck's face. Where? Fed?
adrian dancy
10-10-2010, 09:52 PM
A nice image and agree with above. The first thing I noticed was the pale patch behind the bird's neck but it is hard to tell if that patch is appearing on the neck as well?
Art Kornienko
10-11-2010, 07:08 AM
Love the lighting, low angle, bg. I too would remove the spot just behind the neck.
Karen Summers
10-11-2010, 10:23 AM
beautiful colours in this bird a nice shot would have looked good with all the reflection
Gary Esman
10-11-2010, 10:26 AM
Thank you all for your comments. I have not seen another website with such a great learning experience as this. Truly appreciate all the time and energy. I will redo this image tomorrow evening when I have some time. great comments and removing the OOF white spot should not be to difficult.
Gary Esman
10-11-2010, 10:34 AM
Excellent image and excellent critiques by everyone above. All that you need to do now is get the same image showing the purple cheek patch :) I love the water and the almost surprised look on the duck's face. Where? Fed?

Thanks Artie. This was shot at North Chagrin Reservation. There were only a few open areas of water and we were fortunate enough to have a couple of these gorgeous drakes swim through it. As far as feeding no one in our group was throwing food. I did get a number of drakes with the purple cheek patch, unfortunately not this one. I had a feeling you may be looking for that;). Thanks again, Gary.
Gerrie van Vuuren
10-11-2010, 02:09 PM
Like the low angle, eye contact, detail & colours. Lovely image!
Gary Esman
10-12-2010, 05:59 PM
Reworked the image. Increased the contrast, removed the OOF white spot by the neck. Worked from raw original image. Hope this is better. Thanks again for all the help, Gary.
Arthur Morris
10-13-2010, 07:15 PM
Excellent work on the repost.
Tony Whitehead
10-13-2010, 07:35 PM
Good job, Gary. Really pops now.
DanLim
10-21-2010, 08:59 PM
Repost is top notch ! Congrats.
Daniel.