Looks good to me. Lovely duck with good colors and a pleasing composition. Having it against so much white is a little unconventional -- were you also able to get it against the green-gold reflections? I know steering a duck around can be maddingly difficult.
I'd be tempted to clone out the lighter details in the LR corner.
Even with a sharp lens, shooting at f/2.8 this close to a subject is skating on thin ice. Looks OK here, though, and aperture is always a balancing act with shutter speed.
Last edited by Diane Miller; 03-08-2015 at 06:57 PM.
I have lots of others, this local park has several species that are fed by the locals and are quite tame with a lot of background variation. I'll share some more later, I think it's the same place that Dan Kearl's recent shots are from. This one was specifically chosen because of the white areas. I wanted feedback on color and white balance to make sure my calibration seemed correct.
This is about a 50% of full frame, probably around 25 feet or so, when shooting at this distance, the 2.8 is usually enough DOF (~6 inches). One of the issues I struggle with the 50D is the focus points are too limited. It needs a point between center and far left/right to properly leave enough space in front of the birds. I've tried using the far right/left points, but it leaves a lot of space to the rear and usually not enough in front. The center point is more accurate also, so I tend to just use center and crop. Not the ideal, but it is what it is.
It should work, if you are faster than the duck, to hold the shutter button halfway down to lock focus and then quickly recompose and push the button the rest of the way down to shoot at that focus plane.
I'll give that a try, though I'm usually in AI Servo and shooting short bursts. A good technique to practice I think. It should also work to go BBF/AI Servo, release the back button, recompose and shoot a burst of 2 or 3. Thanks.
I never know where someone is in their technique. BBF is probably the best way to go. Focus, let go and recompose should work, and then re-acquire focus and try again, if the opportunity remains.
I'm not that familiar with the 50D but I suspect it may be limiting your focus precision.