Female Bufflehead After-bath Wingflap.

Here is the female counterpart to the handsome Bufflehead drake. Much "drabber" in her plumage, but so sweet in her own way. I was concentrating my efforts on a male when out of the corner of my left eye I saw this lady taking a bath...we all know what happens 99.9% of the time when a waterbird does that eh! Turned my lens towards it and a few seconds later, the wingflap...and by that time the subject had rotated slightly to a perfect body and head angle:S3:


Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/640s., f/6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop for comp.

This is great timing Dan! Super angle and neat BG, Exposure & sharpness is spot on!
cheers

Daniel;

Well captured, great angle (shooting and bird).

I might consider a 10-15% crop off the top to reinforce the impression of the already low shooting angle

For educational reasons, what settings did you use?

Cheers

Randy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Randy Stout

For educational reasons, what settings did you use?

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Oops, exif info added :-)

Lovely image, Daniel. It has a soothing quality to it. Nice details and the water splash is great, as is the low angle, smooth water, nice BG. Another choice of crop would be a tad off of the top and right.

I like the light, sharpness, exposure, wing blur and sweet BG. I would take some off the top as well. Excellent image Daniel!

Great timing, great action.

gorgeous action shot and i love the crop as it is right now.
Well done!

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

Looks like 1/640s and ISO 800 worked well for you as well Daniel. Seems like you were out in exactly the same conditions with a tad more light for that extra stop of DOF. Motion blur works well and the shutter speed helped provide motion blur in the wings and a little motion in the water droplets.

Congrats buddy!

Jamie

Great shooting angle, any lower and I suppose you would have been in the water! Love the flying droplets and the little duck's face is sharp, the wing blur is just right.

Daniel, Angle,exposure and Background makes the bird look good, the water droplets on the bird completes this image. Well done !

Hiran

Lovely image Daniel, great exposure with good detail, i specifically like the moderately slower SS which has subsequently shown some movement in the wings as well as streaked the droplets

Great shooting angle,great exposure with good detail.very nice action pose.