Drake Wood Duck portrait

[Roy Priest]

Took this yesterday at Reifel Refuge in our usual overcast skies.
Nikon D4, 500mm, 1/320@F4.0, 0EV, tripod

[Randy Stout]

Roy:

Lovely duck, showing lots of detail in many areas. Nice purple cheek flash.

The blacks on the check are blocked up, and a slight increase in exposure, and a shadows adjustment will open that up some without too much risk to the whites. Always a challenge on this duck, to balance the darks and whites.

I could see warming up the color temp just a sliver.

The comp seems a bit crowded on the right. Even though I love the white/black angled feathers on the far left, I would be tempted to crop in from the left and add a little canvas to the right.

Lots of potential in this one, and a couple things to try to tweak it to your satisfaction.

Cheers

Randy

[Mike Milicia]

Nice portrait! Good job on the exposure and lovely BG!

A bit of a head turn toward you would have given you more eye contact.

Agree with Randy about warming it up. Attached is an example of what you get if you take it into ACR and use the eyedropper on the white just below and to the left of the eye. See what you think ... you may prefer something in between.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice portrait overall with great colours. I like the slightly open bill. I like the amount of body showing but I too feel it is a bit tight at right. Mike's warmed up version takes it up a notch!

[arash_hazeghi]

Great head shot Roy, love the closeup details. I like the HA as is but also prefer the slightly warmer version! well done

[Roy Priest]

Thanks everyone for the comments. I like both versions. I will take all suggestions and implement them. Thanks again.