Female Bufflehead After-bath Wingflap.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Here is the female counterpart to the handsome Bufflehead drake. Much "drabber" in her plumage, but so sweet in her own way. I was concentrating my efforts on a male when out of the corner of my left eye I saw this lady taking a bath...we all know what happens 99.9% of the time when a waterbird does that eh! Turned my lens towards it and a few seconds later, the wingflap...and by that time the subject had rotated slightly to a perfect body and head angle


Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/640s., f/6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop for comp.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

This is great timing Dan! Super angle and neat BG, Exposure & sharpness is spot on!
cheers

[Randy Stout]

Daniel;

Well captured, great angle (shooting and bird).

I might consider a 10-15% crop off the top to reinforce the impression of the already low shooting angle

For educational reasons, what settings did you use?

Cheers

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

For educational reasons, what settings did you use?

Oops, exif info added :-)

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely image, Daniel. It has a soothing quality to it. Nice details and the water splash is great, as is the low angle, smooth water, nice BG. Another choice of crop would be a tad off of the top and right.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the light, sharpness, exposure, wing blur and sweet BG. I would take some off the top as well. Excellent image Daniel!

[Frank Schauf]

Great timing, great action.

[Jeroen Stel]

gorgeous action shot and i love the crop as it is right now.
Well done!

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

[Jamie Douglas]

Looks like 1/640s and ISO 800 worked well for you as well Daniel. Seems like you were out in exactly the same conditions with a tad more light for that extra stop of DOF. Motion blur works well and the shutter speed helped provide motion blur in the wings and a little motion in the water droplets.

Congrats buddy!

Jamie

[jack williamson]

Great shooting angle, any lower and I suppose you would have been in the water! Love the flying droplets and the little duck's face is sharp, the wing blur is just right.

[hirandesilva]

Daniel, Angle,exposure and Background makes the bird look good, the water droplets on the bird completes this image. Well done !

Hiran

[Brendon Cremer]

Lovely image Daniel, great exposure with good detail, i specifically like the moderately slower SS which has subsequently shown some movement in the wings as well as streaked the droplets

[mohammad reza shahab]

Great shooting angle,great exposure with good detail.very nice action pose.