We've been blessed with a few overwintering ducks this year (excluding the ever-present and numerous mallards), including a pair of very accommodating American Wigeons. As I love tight clean head and shoulder portraits I made sure to taker a few of those of both the male and the female. The fast running waters of the river make for pretty cool bow wakes, which makes for interesting and fun image selection for editting.
Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II, manual exposure, evaluative metering, natural light, handheld, 1/1250s., f/8, ISO 800, pretty much FF, toned down the bright "bald plate" which had a few blinkies at time of exposure.
Your right about the bow wave Dan it does look good, I would find it impossible to find a fault with the duck itself ,excellent detail and exposure and the eye is spot on.
Excellent low angle and pose. Fine feather details are great. The whole bird looks slightly over exposed to me. The green should be more of a deep teal green. The russet color is not as pale as depicted either. I think bringing the exposure down would help.
Hi Isaac, you may be right about the image being a touch bright. The green, however, is accurate to the way I saw it: depending on the head angle and light angle I've seen it shift from deep orange/yellow to teals and greens and everything in between .
I agree Daniel and don't think I worded that correctly . I think the color is accurate but it is just a bit over exposed to my eye. Typical with any iridescent feathers, the color changes dramatically depending on your angle. Of course there are times of the year, after breeding that the males will molt into their "eclipse" plumage. When this happens they are molting their flight feathers and can not fly. This is the plumage they most closely resemble the drab females and helps them with camouflage. So depending on their state of molt, that green can will change as well. Now they will be in full breeding plumage as you have beautifully captured.
American Wigeon Portrait.
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. I think the color is accurate but it is just a bit over exposed to my eye. Typical with any iridescent feathers, the color changes dramatically depending on your angle. Of course there are times of the year, after breeding that the males will molt into their "eclipse" plumage. When this happens they are molting their flight feathers and can not fly. This is the plumage they most closely resemble the drab females and helps them with camouflage. So depending on their state of molt, that green can will change as well. Now they will be in full breeding plumage as you have beautifully captured.
