Female Wood duck.
5DMkIII, ss 1/500sec, f4, ISO 800, 500mm, tripod.
Slight crop for composition, some slight additional BG blurring in Photoshop Elements and darkening of distractive BG highlights. Some NIK tonal contrast applied to the duck.
Wow -- wonderful detail on the duck! And a very pleasing composition. I don't mind the OOF vegetation in front of the duck as it is so well integrated with the BG.
I might experiment with a slightly lower exposure -- just slightly. And maybe try to subdue the yellows in the BG just a bit. It's beautiful but competes a bit with the duck -- a quandary. You don't want it to look desaturated, though. Maybe some work with Selective Color would be interesting to compare. You might need to mask out the duck, as there are yellows there too.
Agree with Diane on the great detail on the duck. I also like the habitat as well as the overall "feel" to the image. As Diane also has mentioned, maybe a toning down of the BG a little.
Female Wood duck
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