Teal

[Iain Barker]

This male Teal was preening with his head buried most of the time but lifted his head for a second for me to get this shot.

Nikon D7000 300mm F4 AF + 1.4x tc. 1/800sec f7.1 ISO800, manual exposure. RAW processed in Lightroom 5

All C&C welcome.

[Joel Eade]

Beautiful bird and I like the pose. I think, for me, it would be stronger if cropped a little tighter and if you tried to lighten the head plumage and the eye to bring those colors and details out more if possible.

[gail bisson]

This is a nice image.
The colors really pop on the head.How nice for him to perch on the little mound of dirt for you!
I would crop a lot tighter from the top to highlight the bird even more.I would also increase the exposure by 1/3 of a stop.
My only wish is that you were a little bit lower but maybe that was not possible.
gail

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

A little dark around the head, but beautiful otherwise!

[Mike Poole]

Echoing what the others have said, I think you need to lose quite a portion from the top. I can see what you were going for with all the grasses, but there is too much there and it unbalances the shot. A touch brighter with the crop and I think it'll be a lot nicer

[keith mitchell]

Ian agree about a tighter crop but the downside might be that you loose some of that nice reflection,will be interesting to see what others think, it's a very nice image that I would be well pleased with.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Personally I'm OK with the size of the teal in the frame but I think pointing your lens a wee bit more to your left would have improved the comp by placing it more to the right of the frame. I do agree the face is dark as posted and could benefit from lifting the exposure in that area (all the while being careful not to introduce unwanted noise in there).

[Rob Melone]

Nicely composed and very well captured Iain. I like the head turned, the reeds and reflection too.

[Iain Barker]

Thanks for the comments everyone.
I have tried to include everyone's suggestions in this repost. I lightened the whole image by about 1/3 then selectively lightened the head a bit more. I dodged the iris of the eye and burned the pupil. I then cropped a little off the right and some from the top. I think the IQ is just starting to suffer so wouldn't like to crop much more.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image in habitat. Re post looks wonderful. Nice composition.

Regards,
Satish.