I had the privilege of photographing my first ever Gadwall recently, and best of all it was very approachable as it was associating and feeling safe with a flock of mallards. I love to create close ups of a bird's plumage such as this, and have done so on a number of occasions. If this interests you, and would like to see more examples and/or learn a tip or two about doing so, please do visit my new blog post about just this:
Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1000s., f/11, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop to tweak the comp, a few specks on the feathers eliminated via spot removal tool.
Lovely detail shot Daniel! These birds really are beautiful, very nice seeing the spectrum of brown and golden feathers. Very well exposed and nice sharpness.
Very nice. Details look great and the composition is spot on. There has been a gadwall hanging out with the mallards at my local duck pond the last couple of winters.
Cool macro shot using the tele!
It is hard to come up with a good macro shot of feathers and this is well seen.
F 11 was very smart to get good DOF.
Lots of nice details in the feathers, tack sharp and great color palette.
I find the darker area on the LHS of the frame a bit "heavy" and it pulls my eye away.
Gail
Well, you got a very nice image of my favorite part of a drake Gadwall. The light tan worn feather tip just above and left of center really bugs me.
with love, artie
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Very cool. I've tried this a couple times and have never been really thrilled with the results, but I may have to revisit it. I enjoyed your blog post too. Beautiful plumage and exposure here. TFS