Getting My Ducks In A Row...Well Almost

[Rachel Hollander]

Another one taken with Artie and Denise at the IPT/Creative Adventure at Barnegat Jetty. The middle drake popped out of the water and on to the rock between the other two.

Canon 5D3
300 II + 2x III
1/500
f10
ISO 400
HH from jetty, cropped and cloned to remove other ducks with bad HAs, levels, curves, selective color, dodging and burning and sharpened in CS6.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[dankearl]

A nice trio and all in focus.
I like how they look like a good discussion is going on and was interrupted!
The water BG looks so nice, I would like to see more.
Too bad you had to crop tight but nice as a pano.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image of trio and nicely pops up against beautiful blues.I like the colors,details and composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Mike Milicia]

Excellent exposure and detail and great "perch". Pano works well.
Love the poses and interaction between the left and right ducks but would have been better for me without the "intruder" in the center.

[PhilCook]

I like it, the outer two looks most disgruntled with the intrusion their space ....maybe a small crop off the right....or not ?

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice interaction, light and details

[Randy Stout]

Rachel:

A fun frame, does look like a discussion is going on !

I certainly can see the image working without the center duck as well. The two outside ones might be a bit far apart though for maximum effect, without the intruder. If you have a good frame before he popped in, might be fun to post it on this thread to see how it would play.

Nicely exposed, and a strong sense of their environment, the sea and the jetty.

Cheers

Randy

[Faraaz Abdool]

Hi Rachel - lovely crisp image of these guys here. I like how you shot this at f10 so all the ducks would be sharp. They all have interesting poses - if you had three separate pictures each one with one of the ducks here they'd all be great shots. I know we all mumbled obscenities when the middle duck hopped up between the other two ;-). Did you remove a duck from the lower left hand corner? The rock there looks a little odd. A great image nonetheless!

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Randy - the frame before the middle one hopped up the harlequin on the right had his head tucked in and pointing away from us. Faraaz - good eye. Yes, I removed a part of another duck from that corner.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Daniel Cadieux]

As others have mentioned, this is a fun frame! Good interaction, neat perch, lovely water. These guys can be difficult to expose and to me the image seems a tad on the dark side with some blacks blocked and the white face patches grayed out. Just a bit of tweaking there should be good. Looks like you had a great time and I'm enjoying viewing these beautiful ducks.

[Bill Dix]

A fine shot, Rachel. Terrific interaction, and good choice of f-stop. I love how these guys can suddenly pop up onto the rocks. This would have made a very nice shot if the center bird hadn't done so, but that would have been a different image, and this one is nice too.

[Robert Holguin]

Terrific shot!!!
Three good poses and great head angles.
Really like the perch, exposed well, and love the water color.
Well done.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Daniel, Bill and Robert - much appreciated.