Chasing his girl - mallard pan blur in snow flurry
This drake was imaged at the same outing as the previous hen. Although the shutter speed was even slower, I was fortunate to get a bit sharper head/eye on this one.
D500 Sigma 150-600 550mm, f/6.3 ISO 1250 1/250s Hand held
This is a hard one for me to critique as I really don't have much experience with blurs. I do very much like the dark background and the blurred snowflakes. Really adds to the cold and wintery mood of the shot. Mallard looks really good for such a slow shutter speed. How the heck did that happen! I would be tempted to move the bird back in the frame and give it more room to fly into and I would pull the blues down a little in the underwings. Those are easy fixes for a very pleasing frame. And I love the title of this shot. How unlike a man to be chasing his girl
Hi Randy,
I like the snowflakes against that slate BG - quite intriguing. Bird looks good with nice wing position. Trying the bird farther back as Isaac suggests could be worth a look.
Allen
Randy you nailed it and from my perspective an ideal image size. Having conquered this I wonder if it is worthwhile going for slower shutter speeds say 1/125 sec, i think you may get even more dramatic results.
I love the wing position, the colors of the Mallard against the dark background, the blurred snow. Yes to moving him back a tad. I'm not often a fan of blurs, although once in awhile I see one that speaks to me. In this case I find myself wanting the frame to be either sharper or more blurred. A very subjective thing.
Im another in the camp of not normally liking blurs, but this one works for me as the head is just about sharp enough to work, The snow in the BG is an especially nice touch