Mallard Flapping away

[Cody Covey]

Background to much? I feel I am okay with it as it shows a bit of habitat. What do you guys think overall?

<table style="width: 596px; height: 80px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr class="lookatme"><th>Exposure</th> <td>0.001 sec (1/1600)</td> </tr> <tr class="lookatme"> <th>Aperture</th> <td>f/4.0</td> </tr> <tr class="lookatme"> <th>Focal Length</th> <td>300 mm</td> </tr> <tr> <th>ISO Speed</th> <td>500</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Exposure Bias</th> <td>+1/3 EV</td></tr></tbody></table>

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5103/5601810317_da90a6c04a_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/59777096@N03/5601810317/)
20110408-_MG_9554.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/59777096@N03/5601810317/) by eildydar (http://www.flickr.com/people/59777096@N03/), on Flickr

[William Malacarne]

BG is fine by me, you did a good job in showing this guys colors, open beak is a plus. He does seems to be going away from you a little bit.

Bill

[Sid Garige]

Cody,

Techs are perfect. My be a tick harsh on whites but considering the light conditions you did an exceptional job.
Personally I prefer more attention to subjct with little bit of tighter crop some thing similar to this.
Wish he was flying parallel to sensor plane. I would have been an excellent image.

[Cody Covey]

Little noisey so I ran some NR and cropped to how you mentioned, also took some off the back since I didn't have much room to work with in the front. Here is my redo of the image what do you guys think?
http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/8472/wigeonhen2.jpg (http://img828.imageshack.us/i/wigeonhen2.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[Julie Kenward]

Cody, I don't usually mind a "habitat" image but there are a few things I think would make this even stronger. First, the bird is flying at an angle away from you - getting him parallel to the camera's sensor would make this stronger. Also, a busier BG works even better when it is evenly lit - when there are bright and dark spots they can tend to pull the viewer's eyes away from the focal point. If you can even out the dark area with a shadow/highlight adjustment you might be able to take this up another notch.

Good work on the bird...lots of good detail there - just need to watch those camera angles!