Mandarin on autumn leaves

[Mike Poole]

One of out local Mandarins shot a couple of weeks back when the autumn leaves had fallen.

It took a while for me to get the image straight due to the river bank being at a slope which gives an optical illusion - but according to photoshop the bird is swimming on the level!

Canon 5d3
500mm f4is
ISO 2000
1/400th f4

Mike

[Arthur Morris]

Looks level to me. And sharp with a good EXP.

Are these birds naturally occurring by you or are they all escapees as they are on this side of the pond? a

[Loi Nguyen]

Looks great to me. Love the leaves on the pond which make the duck even more stand out. I'd also suggest to try a 16:9 crop to lose some from the top.

Loi

[Mike Poole]

Looks level to me. And sharp with a good EXP.

Are these birds naturally occurring by you or are they all escapees as they are on this side of the pond? a

Hi Artie, thanks for stopping by.

The smart money is on them originally being escapees, but this is a healthy growing group who have been around in the same location for a long time now. There's usually around 25 knocking about, and over the last year or so reports are starting to come in of groups of 2-4 on various local rivers.

Mike

[Mike Poole]

Looks great to me. Love the leaves on the pond which make the duck even more stand out. I'd also suggest to try a 16:9 crop to lose some from the top.

Loi

Cheers Loi. I did consider a few different crops, but wanted to show some habitat. You may have a good shout though with the 16:9, I'll take a look.

Mike

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great low angle and autumn feel. Nice details. Colours look super. My eyes must be playing tricks as I detect some CCW rotation needed. I would also try to remove the very brightest leaf directly below and almost touching the duck

[Ross Taylor]

Hi Mike,

Wonderful colours in this shot, and great perspective and foreground. I have to agree with Daniel, a little CCW rotation seems needed to me. Consider the transition points of OOF foreground to focused middle-ground at the extreme left and right sides. Draw a line between those points and you may come to the same conclusion. The same result seems to be suggested if you do the same for OOF background to focussed middle-ground. Quite likely the duck was not swimming parallel to your shutter, which adds to the illusion of the uneven shoreline. You may also consider to move the bird a little down in the frame, such that there will be a little less OOF foreground.

TFS-Ross

[Bill Dix]

A striking bird in a colorful background. Techs look good. I also thought a 16:9 comp might be a good alternative, although I can understand your not wanting to lose the color in the fg/bg. As to rotation, the bird does look like he's swimming on the level, but when I read Ross's comment above and then looked at the plane of sharp focus, I think there's a good case to be made for some CCW. However you crop and rotate it, its a handsome frame.

[William Dickson]

Great capture. Love all about it Mike. We get them up here, but rarely.

Well done

Will

[Karl Egressy]

Excellent image, Mike. The colors are amazing.