Almost, almost the head and body position I have been trying for. I have a pretty good idea when the bird is going to flap it's wings. The wing flap is preceded by the bird dunking itself under the water one or more times. The it rises out of the water to flap it's wings, but what direction the bird will be is at the whims of the bird. Image of a Ring-necked Duck captured at Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.
Nikon D500
Nikon 500mm F/5.6 VR AF-S ED PF, camera and lens supported by a monopod
1/2000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 450 Auto 1 WB, image captured at 500mm (750mm 35mm equivalent)
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2021 and Neat Image for noise reduction when needed
Cropped for composition and presentation
Last edited by Joseph Przybyla; 01-09-2021 at 09:12 AM.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
Nice sharpness where it matters most. I agree the wing position could be a bit better, but we don 't always get what we see in our heads or want. It has a bit too much wing blur for my personal taste with this type of image, but it still works, that's just a preference thing IMO.
Lucky he gave you some action! The ones around here just float the whole time! That said, 1/2000 was too slow here. I like something closer to 1/3200 to freeze waterfowl wings. The lighting was also working against you with the breast totally shaded. Head sharpness is decent, but the upright pose is what really carries this shot.
I find that that they generally flap like this into the wind, not always, but very often enough to notice and try to predict. Anyhow, I do think you got the head and body angles good here. I'd have preferred the wings pulled back to let the sun shine on the body. The only time I ever got close enough for good shots of this species (except for one lucky time) was at Lake Morton years ago - over here they are skittish and stay way too far away.
Almost...
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