Hmmm. I wonder if it's good to eat?

[Bill Dix]

Wood Duck drake from early this month. I liked his inquisitive look in this frame. I suppose it would have been nice to get the leaf in focus, but that might have hurt the BG. C&C appreciated.

D7000, 700mm, ISO 1250, 1/500s @ f/7.1 manual.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the way the duck is staring directly at the leaf. I'm OK with it oof. There is a bit of noise still visible on that leaf that you could run NR on though. Judging from the water ripples the image may need a bit of CW rotation. Lovely colours and sense of autumn.

[Randy Stout]

Bill:

Lovely colors, head tilt, shooting angle, all good.

Yes, a sliver more DOF would have been nice, but you didn't have many options to work with based on your posted settings.

The comp. could probably be tightened up a bit if you have enough pixels left to work with!

Cheers

Randy

[Satish Ranadive]

Bill Sir,
Excellent image of handsome bird with tilted head and inquisitive look.Leaf is every thing as far as title is concerned. Beautiful colors, nice reflection and composition.
Daniel Sir,
When I opened the post ( without reading other comments) my first thought was CW rotation. Thanks all of you, I have really learned a lot from all of you.

Regards,
Satish.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Bill - I love the cocked head and inquisitive look. Beautiful fall colors. Agree on the rotation.

TFS,
Rachel

[gail bisson]

This is great Bill!
I love the cocked head and the leaf.
I don't think there was any way to get enough DOF to have the duck and the leaf in focus- they are just too far apart even for F 14.
I really like this because of the unusual pose of the duck. BG looks great and I agree it needs a bit of CW rotation.
The exposure on the duck looks great,
gail

[Mike Milicia]

The pose makes this one special ... beautiful water and excellent detail!

[Holger Leyrer]

Wonderful light, colours and low angle. The head pose is absolutely great.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. Yes, I can see the need for a slight rotation -- thanks. And also the noise on the leaf. I tried to sharpen what couldn't really be sharpened because of the DOF, and thus increased the noise on the leaf: I might be able to take some of it out. Randy, this was already a rather large crop and the IQ is showing it, so I don't think it could stand a tighter crop.