Ring-neck male

[John Chardine]

These are my favourites and a common duck at the Sackville Waterfowl Park. The males are redundant these days as many of the females are on eggs and the males don't incubate.

Cropped for composition and ran some selective noise reduction. This is a tough comp as the head is more or less central. I wanted to give enough room on the left. Comments of course welcome!

40D, 500 mm f4, 1.4 x tc
capture date: Sunday, June 1, 2008 1:15:24 PM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/1600
aperture: f7.1
exposure bias: -0.3
metering: Pattern

[Gus Cobos]

Great capture,
The details and colors on your duck are great...the water is very pleasing...:cool:

[Maxis Gamez]

Hi John,

Lovely details, color and head pose. You have a winner here!

[Leroy Laverman]

Nice job with the exposure on this one. Wish the water wasn't quite so choppy as it detracts some from the beautiful bird. Feels like too much space on the top edge (or maybe not enough on the other three).

[Lance Peters]

Great details, Great colour.

:)

Lance

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Great pose and excellent exposure John and I like the feeling of movement in this capture. Fine work !!

[Blake Shadle]

Very nice work, John. Fine detail and good color. A little bit softer light would be nice. I also think you could crop some from the top and bottom and increase the amount of impact your subject has in the frame. Good eye contact!

[Blake Shadle]

I couldn't help myself. I took a little off the front, top and bottom (a smidge off the right side). Then used a levels adjustment layer, and masking, to lighten the area around his eye / face. :) Good work, John.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great eye contact and setting. I might try to work with curves some more for more details in the blacks and to tone down the whites a bit.

[Steve Canuel]

Nicely done John. I like Blake's idea for the crop. You did a good job on capturing the sheen of th ehead and the centered head looks okay to me as his body occupies the right 2/3s and he's got the open left 1/3rd to swim into. Nice color on the BG and the choppy waves don't bother me although the two vertical lines in the wave infront of him keep drawing my eye.
Steve

[Blake Shadle]

Nicely done John. I like Blake's idea for the crop. You did a good job on capturing the sheen of th ehead and the centered head looks okay to me as his body occupies the right 2/3s and he's got the open left 1/3rd to swim into. Nice color on the BG and the choppy waves don't bother me although the two vertical lines in the wave infront of him keep drawing my eye.
Steve

Good eye, Steve. Didn't notice those two lines... but now that you mention them I keep looking!! I'm not sure if it's enough to remove though. Still, good eye ;)