Blue-Winged Teal in Flight

[Marina Scarr]

Thought it might be fun to post a BIF for a change (esp since Arash is changing it up with portraits.) This was taken here in Sarasota while sitting on the edge of a pond in front of my tripod-mounted gear. I noticed these teal getting fidgety and prepared for their take off. I prepared by pre-focusing, then bumping focus as this one flew and then did some "spraying and praying," as the saying goes. This was my favorite frame. I like the wing position and water drops!

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful comments and critiques.

Canon 1D4, Canon 500L
F8, 1/2500sec, ISO 800, manual mode
Jobu head, Feisol tripod

[Jonathan Ashton]

I am not surprised this was your favourite frame it is a peach! Love the wing position and the background, exposure and colours excellent - job well done!

[Bill Dix]

What a sweet shot of this drake. Nice flight position against a gorgeous background.

[John Robinson]

Great luck with the wing placings marina, and a great BG. Nice sharpness on the bird too.
Good stuff
Johnb

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Marina, a flight pose you couldnt have captured any better. Nice and sharp, and always great against an OOF folige BG. Droplets added bonus too.

[William Dickson]

Lovely flight shot. Nice details and a great flight pose. Beautiful colours throughout the image.

Will

[David Salem]

Holy cow Marina!! This is awesome!! The wing position and the details look fantastic and I like the mottled green BG allot. Duck flight frames don't get much better than this, especially while your were sitting down This is the exact type of frame we were all trying to get at the workshop.
The only suggestion might be to clean up the catch light a little, but besides that, I am super jealous. I would love to have this in my portfolio!

[Doug Brown]

You pulled this off while sitting down?!? Impressive! Maybe we should do next year's duck workshop in Florida! Congrats on an excellent flight frame with good color and dynamic wing position.

[dankearl]

This is really nice. Catchlight could be sharper as Dave noted and I think some of the darker areas could be brought up a tad.
Great flight shot.

[keith mitchell]

Marina I can only echo the above comments,excellent.

Keith.

[arash_hazeghi]

Excellent flight shot Marina, sharp with an attractive wing position and a nice BG. i like the water drops.

It's equally impressive that you got this shot on a tripod which makes it doubly difficult.

Excellent work!

[Marina Scarr]

Thank you all for your comments and critiques. I am not big into PP. I am afraid the only adjustment I made to the OP was a linear curve. So I have taken a bit of advice here, removed the second catch light in the eye, dodged certain portions of the bird a tad and brought out the colors a bit more. I think it's an improvement and I appreciate your advice.

[David Salem]

The repost polished this killer frame up nicely. Great work Marina

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent flight shot. Beautiful colors, great details, very nice BG and composition.
Repost is superb.

Regards,
Satish.