Male & Female Australian Wood Duck

[Leigh Cojocar]

Taken this morning at royal botanical gardens in Melbourne AUS.

I'm not sure how I feel about the females head position or the BG, but I really like how the reflection looks in the water.


Canon 60D 70-200 @ 200, ISO 640,f4.0,1/200th second Handheld while lying down.

There was heavy overcast and I was having a hard time getting enough SS. but after seeing the pictures on the computer I realize I shouldn't be as scared to jack up the ISO during the day time as I would be at night with the 60D.

Adjustments in LR, cropped quite a bit. I need a longer lens :(

[Diane Miller]

I like the interaction of the two, and the reflection is very cool. The soft light has robbed some color -- you might be able to bring up a little more, and possibly some tweaking of color temp could help.

I'd consider cropping to get rid of the dark areas at the top, just cutting into the top of the rock above the male's head. There is nothing batter than a longer lens, in almost any situation!

High ISO is generally not bad these days -- better than a soft image due to a slow shutter speed or too little depth of field. I use three noise reduction programs, and just try each to see which works best on any given image: NeatImage, Nik's Dfine and Topaz DeNoise. I'm finding the latter is often the best.

[Leigh Cojocar]

Yes, I should have boosted the ISO way up and stayed out shooting. It seems the days are getting less sunnier here in Australia so I'm sure i'll run in to the situation quite a bit.

I thought about cropping it below that dark spot or trying to clone it out, it was already cropped so much I didn't wanna degrade it any further although I'm surprised how much you can crop a picture that is extremely sharp to begin with. I've been lying down to shoot lately and am getting far better pictures then when I try to hand hold with a less then ideal SS.

As for the longer lens I'm looking, I just missed out yesterday on a steal of a deal on a used 500mm F4L IS for $4000. which would have been a stretch for me to spend but totally worth it i'm sure.

[Diane Miller]

For focal length at a bargain, and the convenience of zoom, several people here have posted some awesome images with the new Tamron 150-600, and it's getting great reviews. The best part is that it's only $1000.

I'm wondering how fast focus is for birds in flight, but for anything halfway still it sounds great!

[Leigh Cojocar]

I'll have to look in to it. Might be a good lens to start with until I pull the trigger on some big L glass.