Female Wood Duck

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sony A850~Sony 70-400G@400mm~ISO1000~1/800sec~F5.6~manual exposure~HH~overcast~12-18-2010~Houston,Texas~CS5
From a small duck pond in West Houston (John Storey Park). Although I have plenty of images of this duck in water, I liked this one with her on the bank walking down to the water. Wish she had a male with her, but a pretty enough duck in her own right.
comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

my website (http://avianimagesource.com)

[denise ippolito]

Beautiful pose, colors and golden tones. I like seeing them out of the water and I don't mind the dirty bill. Very nice feather detail.

[Bill Dix]

Really nice, Bill. I don't think I've ever seen a female Wood Duck out of the water; this shows some colors in the wing that I never knew were there. Comp, pose and detail are beautiful. My first impression was that it was too warm overall; but as I look closely at the white around the eye and on the wing, they look pretty white on my screen so the lovely golden tones must be a result of the bank color and overcast light.

[Cheryl Flory]

great colors! I really like the calm and subdued feeling to this image, as well as her being on a slant. I think that makes it so much more interesting than if she were on level ground. The only thing I might try, is adding contrast to the eye, or some other way to bring out the faint highlight. a very nice image!

[Julie Kenward]

I agree that the golden tones really take this over the top William. What a beauty! You got a perfect DOF IMO. I love the dirty bill here but I'm tempted to tell you to clean up the few spots in the sand. I don't know why but my eye keeps bouncing down there to look at them. Totally up to you, though...

Super image! I hope it shows up in the OOTB forum at some point...I would love to see what you'd do with this one!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks Denise, Bill, Cheryl, Julie! I did contemplate cleaning up the dirty bill, but I'm basically sort of lazy. I could clean up the sand more, pretty easy wth CS5 content-aware fill.
Julie, I did post the same duck(different image) in OOTB at the same time I posted this one.
Regards~Bill

[Randy Stout]

Bill:

I have seen a lot of female wood ducks, and this one really screamed out at me as being too yellow/brown.
I like the comp, angled ground, sharpness, but think it would be more realistic if the yellow cast was reduced.

But, of course, you get to make the call, since you were there!

Cheers

Randy

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Randy, I have seen very few female wood ducks, and this was the first one I got close enough to photograph, so if you think it is too yellow I will have to defer to your expertise! I've seen pairs of these ducks at a distance, but always concentrated on the male, so I really had no idea what the females actually looked like. Wood ducks are relatively uncommon here in Texas.
Whether this was the way it looked at capture, due to the light and reflected sand, is immaterial to me at least. Reminds me of green herons in duck-weed. Everything has an ugly greenish cast, and I don't hesitate knocking the green out in ACR. regards~Bill

[Randy Stout]

Bill:

Here is a link to a female woody I posted this fall. I believe the colors to be pretty accurate.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?73497-Ms.-Wood-duck-close-up

Cheers

Randy

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks for the link Randy. I looked at a number of images that I took of the duck, with differnt lighting, and I think your image is slightly shifted to the blue. If the head plummage is actually gray, I think warming it up a bit is not such a bad choice, probably not as much as in my post, but somethng in between yours and mine.
I looked at a number of terrible images of female wood ducks on the internet. I had no idea there was so much crappy avian photography out there. It seems practically everyone really likes bright sunlight and that washed out look!
This reminds me that a number of people really like taking images in that "golden hour" when everthing is shifted toward the red. Unless there is clear evidence in the photograph that it is near sunrise or sunset, like elongated shadows or the actual sun rising or setting in the image, I think it is a bad idea because it distorts the real color so significantly.
regards~Bill

[Randy Stout]

Bill

Here is another image from the same place, later in the day. Def. more brown tones, but not as yellow brown as yours. Isn't it fun, getting it right is a moving target, and often the environment changes the entire look of the bird.

Cheers

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?73209-Female-Woodie-in-late-afternoon-sun

Randy

[John Chardine]

Lovely Bill. Great eye contact, sharpness, FG and BG, and low angle.

My main issue with the image is the colour of the light, which I think is too yellow. I don't see a time of day for the image so can't place the warmth of the light in any context. Overcast conditions can produce a blue cast rather than yellow.

[William Malacarne]

John

EXIF shows the time at 11:27:28.

Bill

PS Are you back from your trip now?