I had the privilege of photographing my first ever Gadwall recently, and best of all it was very approachable as it was associating and feeling safe with a flock of mallards. I love to create close ups of a bird's plumage such as this, and have done so on a number of occasions. If this interests you, and would like to see more examples and/or learn a tip or two about doing so, please do visit my new blog post about just this:
Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1000s., f/11, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop to tweak the comp, a few specks on the feathers eliminated via spot removal tool.
02-09-2019, 11:06 PM
David Roach
Love everything about this one. Cool patterns, colors and textures. TFS
02-10-2019, 08:35 AM
Ivan Sjogren
Lovely detail shot Daniel! These birds really are beautiful, very nice seeing the spectrum of brown and golden feathers. Very well exposed and nice sharpness.
02-10-2019, 08:36 AM
John Mack
Very nice. Details look great and the composition is spot on. There has been a gadwall hanging out with the mallards at my local duck pond the last couple of winters.
02-10-2019, 10:33 AM
gail bisson
Cool macro shot using the tele!
It is hard to come up with a good macro shot of feathers and this is well seen.
F 11 was very smart to get good DOF.
Lots of nice details in the feathers, tack sharp and great color palette.
I find the darker area on the LHS of the frame a bit "heavy" and it pulls my eye away.
Gail
02-11-2019, 10:11 AM
Arthur Morris
Well, you got a very nice image of my favorite part of a drake Gadwall. The light tan worn feather tip just above and left of center really bugs me.
with love, artie
02-12-2019, 08:26 PM
Alex Becker
Very cool. I've tried this a couple times and have never been really thrilled with the results, but I may have to revisit it. I enjoyed your blog post too. Beautiful plumage and exposure here. TFS