Mallard Drake easing in

[Randy Stout]

Taken yesterday on a cold but sunny morning.

D4 500mm f/4 @f 6,3 1,4000s ISO 800 hand held

Post: Selective sharpening, crop for comp (20%) slight vignette

Advice and comments always appreciated

Cheers

Randy

[vishaljadhav]

Impressive image, i love the classical freeze, lovely details on the white, the HA is perfect
lovely bg

[David Salem]

Nice work capturing this drake Mallard. You got him lined up perfectly parallel to the sensor and you captured that surprisingly illusive green iridescence very well. Sharp and well exposed. Only wish the wing was fully extended. Nice one!

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Randy,

A very pleasing image, for sure. Not only is the head angle great, but it looks like his body is turned slightly your way, giving us a nice view of the belly and feet.

I do agree with David about wishing for fully extended wings. However, I would be delighted to have captured this myself.

Miguel

[gail bisson]

I really like this.
I really get a sense of the gliding motion.
Great colors and exposure and BG. You have a terrific HA as well-almost a coy look.
No nits from me,
Gail

[Jonathan Ashton]

Really accurate focus and great exposure, super pose. I like just about everything, I f I was going to consider any modification I think I would make the frame 3:2, I think with the body being inclined to roughly 45 degress he doesn't need quite so much space in front and just maybe a tad more behind.

[Marina Scarr]

All around lovely image, Randy. The colors are just amazing and your bird just pops against this BG. In a perfect world sure a better wing position would have been nice, but as we all know, we don't live in a perfect world and the wildlife has a mind of its own. The details in some of your feathers are really amazing.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks everyone for your input. Very much appreciated.

Jon - I am leaning your way on the crop, and think for my taste, about 20% off the free space to the right would work better with this pose. Thanks

Randy

[Frank Schauf]

Nice flight pose, good capture.

[Satish Ranadive]

Randy Sir:
Excellent flight pose of mallard you have captured.
Love the pose,beautiful colors with great details and lovely composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice pose captured, Randy. I like the way the upper part of the background matched the colour of the breats.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Randy, love the 'casual' incoming pose with the tucked in feet. You seem to have nailed the exposure on these guys well enough - greens on the head perfecto. I actually like the two tone BG of the blue and browns, they go well together.

After looking at your image, Im really looking forward to shooting ducks and geese at my local pond during our winter. Maybe not as cold as yours, but hey, cold enough for us. On a cold morning it can get to -3 deg C, and thats in Africa.