Mallard portrait (f)

[Glenn Pure]

A small group of relatively tame mallards were hanging our vehicle while we stopped for a break. Of course, they had food on their minds but didn't have any luck with us. Either way, it enabled some close encounters at eye level, this shot among them. In hindsight, I should have stopped down a little more and upped the ISO to compensate but feel the DOF works as presented with this one. I've just taken a whisker off the left of the frame for this crop.

Thank you for looking and for any comments you are kind enough to share.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/200 sec, f7.1, ISO 1000. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Modest NR to bird and stronger NR to background. Bird only sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool, remove Gaussian Blur: 0.6 pixels at 50%) after final size reduction.

[Juan Tolentino]

Excellent details and pose. compositional wise I'd like to see more room on the RHS, but this is probably personal preference. Thank you for sharing Glenn.

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

I really like the background colors. I definitely thing this image will benefit from adding more canvas in the right hand side

TFS

[Bill Dix]

Great portrait with a lovely background. It is sharp where it matters, although a bit more DOF certainly wouldn't have hurt it. I agree that a bit more room on the right would be ideal, but for a portrait I really don't mind seeing it fill the frame as you have done.

[William Dickson]

Very nice Glenn. I really like the detail you captured and the BG colours show it real good. I'm ok with the crop you chose as 'most of the bird' is on the LHS of the frame. Good work.

Will

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I love tight head portraits.
In this case, for me, what would've worked in an ideal scenario is if the bill too was on the same plane of focus. While the head turn is ideal, the DOF is just not quite enough, rendering the end of the bill just a tiny bit soft.
Still plenty of detail where most detail is needed.
Well done!

[annmpacheco]

Hi Glenn
Im also a fan of head shots, super nice detail and would have stopped down more if i could... Love the BG too. Well done

[Glenn Pure]

Many thanks to you all for your comments. As noted in my OP, I think more DOF would have been nice but the opportunity is long gone now! I have another frame with the bird's head more parallel to the sensor but I don't find it as interesting (definitely something in the perfect head angle comments on this forum) and frankly would rather have a nice pose that a touch more in focus.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Many thanks to you all for your comments. As noted in my OP, I think more DOF would have been nice but the opportunity is long gone now! I have another frame with the bird's head more parallel to the sensor but I don't find it as interesting (definitely something in the perfect head angle comments on this forum) and frankly would rather have a nice pose that a touch more in focus.

That's where quick thinking and action will save you in the future.
You could easily have stepped down 2/3 or even a stop for more DOF. That lens should produce pin sharp images with good HH technique at even 1/60th. So if higher ISO is a worry, then you could lose some SS in favour of more DOF. Just a thought. :)