Blue-winged Teal Flight

[Doug Brown]

I'm getting really excited about my upcoming Duck workshop with Dave Salem! Every year we get the opportunity to photograph all 3 species of Teal, but Blue-winged Teals are usually present in low numbers. This past year, I made getting a good flight shot of a Blue-winged Teal my number one priority. We didn't get many flight passes from my target bird, but I got lucky with this frame!

Canon 1Dx, 600mm + 1.4x, f/5.6, 1/3200, ISO 1000, manual exposure, hand held.

[gail bisson]

Just beautiful Doug.
Great light, tack sharp and perfect wing position.
Love the feather details and the colors of the wing.
Great BG as well.
Gail

[Doug Brown]

Just beautiful Doug.
Great light, tack sharp and perfect wing position.
Love the feather details and the colors of the wing.
Great BG as well.
Gail

Thanks Gail! I got lucky with the BG because there was only a thin sliver of green, and the duck happened to have its wings fully down as it crossed the small area of vegetation.

[Isaac Grant]

Agree 100% with all that Gail said. You are the master at these DIF shots. And to do it hand held with the 600 and an extender! Makes me feel like I need to hit the gym. How much did you crop this shot?

[Tim Foltz]

Doug, nice shot from my favorite spot for ducks IF. sharp, great light, nice BG, sweet colors. Let's hope it's a good year.

-Tim

[Doug Brown]

Agree 100% with all that Gail said. You are the master at these DIF shots. And to do it hand held with the 600 and an extender! Makes me feel like I need to hit the gym. How much did you crop this shot?

Thanks Isaac. Here's a LR screen capture of the full frame. Full frame measures 5184 horizontal pixels, and my crop measures 2154 pixels (about 42% of FF).

[Isaac Grant]

Wow. The 1DX and the 600 hold up amazingly well with such a large crop. Seems to take away many of the advantages of a crop body, huh! Also I take it that it is easier to catch the bird in the frame when you can get such excellent results with that much of a crop.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image. Very nice pose with superb wing position, beautiful colors, BG and very nice composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[keith mitchell]

Doug your image looks excellent to me,also your explanation of how you took the shot and how you cropped it is a great help to myself.

Keith.

[Mike Poole]

Perfect wings down pose and I like the slight upwards flying angle.

Superb IQ, especially given the large crop.

Mike

[Doug Brown]

Wow. The 1DX and the 600 hold up amazingly well with such a large crop. Seems to take away many of the advantages of a crop body, huh! Also I take it that it is easier to catch the bird in the frame when you can get such excellent results with that much of a crop.

It's important to keep the bird in the center of the frame to get the best IQ; those are your best AF points and will give you the sharpest focus on your subject.

[David Salem]

What a great looking frame Doug!! Yeah you got lucky but you got some mad skills too
One of the hardest ducks to get in flight due to their fast speed and erratic flight pattern.
One of the best blue wing teal shots I have ever seen.
Looking forward to the workshop this January also.

[Bill Nuttall]

That's a sharpe image Doug - Lovely

cannot add anything to what has been said

[Jim Crosswell]

Excellent image Doug! I like the wing position, sweet BG, composition and IQ is great for such a big crop.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Doug, great flight pose with the full downstroke of the wings, and just love the light in this. Great IQ for the way you have cropped this. Good work.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Great shot Doug, I really like it, the pose is ideal. I was quite surprised at the extent of the crop, I wonder if it would look even better with a little less cropping, perhaps there would be a tad more detail in the plumage.

[Bill Dix]

Sweet! It all came together on this one; checks all the boxes. Held up will with a large crop.

[Doug Brown]

Thanks for the comments everyone!