Wood Duck, Female, portrait

[Jon Pugmire]

Usually these are pretty shy, but this one was curious and came close enough for a portrait.
Working off a Manfrotto tripod and ball head.

Canon 50D, 70-200 2.8L IS USM II + 2.0 extender
1/100, f/5.6, ISO 400, 300mm

Processed in LR + PS removed some debris, sharpened bird, noise reduction and surface blue on the background.

[Luis Patacao]

Good job with a 1/100 shutter speed, managing a good detail on the wood duck (love the yellow ring in his eye). As for composition i would have chosen to give more room in front on her and less behind, balancing the frame.

Regards

[Diane Miller]

I love portraits and could go either way, with this crop or a slightly looser one. Beautiful capture and processing. You have the IQ that would allow some judicious sharpening of the JPEG, just on the head, for a little additional pop. The feathers just above the water seem sharper than the head.

Here a Smart Sharpen, Lens Blur mode, Radius 0.3, 50%, masked to the head. I didn't want to overdo it so the difference may be hard to see, and those may not be the best values -- just tossing out the idea.

[Jon Pugmire]

Good job with a 1/100 shutter speed, managing a good detail on the wood duck (love the yellow ring in his eye). As for composition i would have chosen to give more room in front on her and less behind, balancing the frame.

Regards

Can you give me some more idea of what is being balanced by this change? I'm definitely still struggling with composition elements. Getting a better handle on color, dodging and burning in PP, etc. but I need work in understanding what makes the composition work. In this case I didn't want the head centered in the frame, so I actually took some off from the left, but I think the right side is as shot. If I do as you suggest, I think I'll end up with the eye close to centered in the frame, which I thought I was trying to avoid? Like I said, I've got lots to learn about this part of the art.

Thanks!

[Jon Pugmire]

I love portraits and could go either way, with this crop or a slightly looser one. Beautiful capture and processing. You have the IQ that would allow some judicious sharpening of the JPEG, just on the head, for a little additional pop. The feathers just above the water seem sharper than the head.

Here a Smart Sharpen, Lens Blur mode, Radius 0.3, 50%, masked to the head. I didn't want to overdo it so the difference may be hard to see, and those may not be the best values -- just tossing out the idea.

I'll give that a try, I was letting LR do the last bit of sharpening for the jpeg, but I can see from your RP that doing it from PS in some cases is the better option. The original sharpening I did in PS did have a better effect on the breast than the head. Your RP shows there is more detail still to be had in the head.

Thanks!

[David Salem]

I was going to mention some selective sharpening on the head but Diane beat me to it. Nice looking portrait of this hen. I like the water color and I think the comp you chose looks fine. I like seeing the surroundings in the eye. Well done

[Jon Pugmire]

This is with a little more sharpening to the head, might not be quite as far as Diane went. The area behind the eye was a bit too much in Diane's RP, though I liked the crown and below the eye. Opened up the crop just a bit more ULC, almost as shot at this point. Did a little more healing around general bright spot removal on the feathers. Did some eye work also.

[Diane Miller]

Looks great! That's the idea of tossing out a modified version, to challenge the maker to have a fresh look!

[Mike Herdman]

Nice Duck Portrait...good detail and nice sharp eye. The subtle colors in the feathers are nice as is the subtle reflections in the water work well. The water droplets are nice also, to me, the beak looks little soft but that could be form the download compression.

[Mike Blackburn]

Love the eye. Great capture

[Jon Pugmire]

Nice Duck Portrait...good detail and nice sharp eye. The subtle colors in the feathers are nice as is the subtle reflections in the water work well. The water droplets are nice also, to me, the beak looks little soft but that could be form the download compression.

The tip of the beak is soft, too much head turn. It was the best eye I got so I went with this one instead of some others where the HA was better. The light was just at the point where there become few options with the 50D. Really need a new body that can handle ISO 1600/3200 better, but this is what I have to work with at the moment.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm a sucker for head portraits to, and this one is quite appealing. Both crops work for me. I never think of the eye placement for composition...if it lands n the middle then so be it. For images that include the whole body it is almost always best to have more room in front of the face than behind the tail (the "accepted" ratio is 3-4 times more room in front than behind, but that can vary depending on the size of the subject in the frame or the influence of other items in the picture). For tight head portraits there can be a bit more leeway, as the two versions here show. When the body is cut off the frame you automatically end up with more space in front of the bill, but you don't want too much. You struck a good balance IMO.

[Jim Keener]

My favorite part of this image is the balance of the purple/magenta feather on the right of the image with the purple/magenta highlights on the beak. A beautiful portrait. Thanks for posting it.

[Shantanu Ambulgekar]

what a great crisp and clean shot !! Wow !
You can see the reflection of the photographer's background in the Bird's Eye. I like it very very much.
TFS

Regards,
Shantanu Ambulgekar.