I wondered what folks thought of this. I'm unsure of the head angle as I have never been indoctrinated and make determinations instinctively.
This is of course a male Ring-necked Duck in full breeding plumage. The brown ring around the neck shows up well in this image, created today at Sackville, NB. Bird was a little backlit so upped the exposure by 0.7 stop. Light was fading so was pushing my limits and that of the IS. Monopod was used. Rear of bird is soft because the DoF did not reach that far forward- I focussed on the eye. Standard edits and crop.
Hi John Birds looking at that angle out of the frame can work I think it would have worked better as a horizontal with more room? It is very appealing as presented
I like the settings you used and agree on the exposure comp Don't think you could have done more with the dof Got the eye sharp which is the priority. btw the dof on super tele lenses is a little different than for wide angles and shorter lenses. It seems to be at about half !!!
I'm not at all bothered by the OOF part of the duck. You could have pushed your ISO to 800 and gained 1/3 stop more DOF without paying much of a penalty in noise. I'm with Alfred regarding the horizontal crop. I always wondered why they were called Ring-Necked Ducks, and it looks like I now have my explanation.
For some reason the head angle works for me here but the image needs more room at right. The DOF is fine too, as Alfred mentions you got the all important eye nice and sharp. I'd eliminate the bright horizontal streak in the water going behind the neck.
Many thanks again for all the very useful comments. Consensus is for a horizontal crop which I will try. I guess the "logic" of my instinctive vertical crop was that the bird was moving away from me and that therefore the room in the image should be where the bird is going, not where it is looking. Anyway, here it is and it works well I think. I retained the white lines fore and aft of the bird for the sake of symmetry.
I really like this image, John. I especially like the head angle, exactly as presented, that makes you wonder what the bird is looking at - and thus adds interest to the photo, in my opinion. If I was tweaking your repost, I would crop a little from the left and a little off the bottom (just above the white highlights in the water).
another Ring-neck
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