I hadn't seen too many of these in the past. I must've not been looking in the right places because a friend of mine took me to a small pond in Orlando that had about 14 of these guys. Only 5 were females, which left 4 males without a mate. It took quite some time laying on my belly for them to get accustomed to me, but once they did I was able to fire off some nice shots.
I used a Grizzly bean bag (just wrote a review here if you are interested) for support while laying down.
Beautiful details, color, bg. I like the partly open bill. I wonder about a different crop if you are able to, with less bg above the bird and more of the reflection below him.
Richard, not sure that i have the rest of the reflection below. It was a high ISO shot, so I didn't want to crop too much and lose IQ.
Loi, the whole area is covered by trees, so the green is from the reflections of the trees. Which also explains the lack of light and high ISO. I did get some shots with various backgrounds, but this was my favorite of the bunch.
Color, detail and light is extra good Miguel, stunning green toned backdrop and the mirrored satin texture to the water....open beak adds a lot of character as well. The top of the bill is ever so slightly bright I think and the comp in frame works nicely as is, but I also feel the reflection in this case doesn't add much, so cropping off the bottom to a point just on where the beak is reflected may also work nicely
Wood Duck
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