Another Black-bellied Whistling duck with pretty light

[Jeannean Ryman]

I haven't had a chance to shoot much early in the morning lately with decent light, so was pleased to have a calm, clear morning with pretty light on Tues. at a local pond. This wasn't the best angle I got, but it was the prettiest light, so decided to go with this one. As always, your feedback is very much appreciated. Techs: Nikon D7000/500mm f/4-P on a tripod and gimbal head at 1/320. f/6.3, ISO 200. (edit: This is a full frame shot. I debated about adding some canvas to the bottom, but decided to post as is and get your feedback first. The grass started getting messy, so not sure it would add much.)

Jeannean

[Leon Plympton]

Jeannean -

Pretty light? Indeed!
The exposure (on my laptop monitor): perfect;
focus on the eye: spot-on;
bokeh: sublime;
my only suggestion: vertical composition / crop;
a splendid capture.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Jeannean. The colors, as opposed to your last BBWD, are as I would expect. Exposure and detail of the head and neck are excellent, very pleasing background, and I think the composition is good, though, as you mentioned, it needs more space on the bottom. Since it was close to full frame, being relatively close meant f/6.3 was insufficient if your intent was to get the entire bird in sharp focus. In this case, the focus acquisition point would not be the eye, as is usually a good idea, but a point more toward the back end of the bird. In other words focusing on the eye would require a smaller aperture than actually needed. Sometimes it is perfectly fine to have the head/ eyes /bill in sharp focus, (indeed you may not have enough light to be able to use the required aperture) but in this instance the OOF parts are in the foreground, and I think that is a problem.

Just my 2 cents~Bill

[Faraaz Abdool]

Jeannean - excellent shot of this beautiful duck. Love the light here as well! I understand your feeling to add canvas to the bottom - maybe you could've tried shooting this in vertical as it would've given you room in all the right places. It looks like you had a far enough background to stop down further to get the rest of the bird in focus. It's a problem that I have as well that Denise Ippolito pointed out to me last month - when the bird's tail is in front of the head, you should try to get all in focus, if the other way around, it's not that big of a deal. All other aspects of this photo are top notch, though!

[Jeannean Ryman]

Thank you for the very helpful feedback. It's pretty much what I see as well in regards to DOF, but hadn't thought about shooting vertical. Good suggestion. It was the first shot of the morning and I had forgotten I hadn't changed the ISO from the last shoot. After the duck got in the water, I checked my LCD and realized my mistake. Doh! Next time I will slow down a bit and think of first things first...hopefully! Thanks again!

[Clyde Hopper]

Beautiful Duck ,Jeannean ! I have to set my camera before I get out of my car,or it's over . LOL .Once I get in "Stalker " mode, all is lost ......BUT when in a Blind I tend to do much better at thinking of what I want the outcome too be .

[John Chardine]

Very good point made by Bill about depth of field. The problem is figuring out where the focus point should be. If you knew the rough dimensions of the bird you could work it out. I find the DoF preview on cameras pretty well useless because of the darkening of the viewfinder. In this particular case the neck of the bird is in about the same plane as the eye but then you have quite a distance towards you before you get to a point on the body on which you could focus, and that point may be too far forward.

I like the image. A little more room top and bottom would be good.