black belly whistling duck pair

[Sid Garige]

D300, 200-400mm Vr + 1.7x

F11 1/250

[Rob Lavoie]

Great focus on both, I would like to see the back ducks eye and head a bit lighter more so the eye. F11 was a nice choice for this and I like the water color.

[Judd Patterson]

Hey Sid! I love the positions of the two ducks and your overall composition...extremely nice and rare to see something this successful with a pair. To my eyes, the manually blurred background seems too obvious. It's the transition from the blur to the water reflections that is the hardest for my eyes to overlook. I think I'd try a layer mask with a simple gradient on your blurred layer to make the transition more subtle. Was this taken at Green Cay by chance? I'd love to photograph this species sometime, but they mostly avoid me. :)

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Very beautiful composition and pose Sid. I too would like to see a more gradual change from water to BG . Like this a lot and many thanks for sharing.

[Sudhir Shivaram]

Hey Sid, nice image with excellent use of DOF. The timing is perfect with the head turn of both birds. Lovely image.

[Ramon M. Casares]

The gradual blur from water vto BG feels digital to me I would like to see this shot with the original BG or with a not so blurred one as it will probalby look better, still I like a lot this couple shot! Very nice! Congratualitons!

[Arthur Morris]

Nicely done with two good head positions but Judd has nailed the big problem...

[Sid Garige]

Hey Sid! I love the positions of the two ducks and your overall composition...extremely nice and rare to see something this successful with a pair. To my eyes, the manually blurred background seems too obvious. It's the transition from the blur to the water reflections that is the hardest for my eyes to overlook. I think I'd try a layer mask with a simple gradient on your blurred layer to make the transition more subtle. Was this taken at Green Cay by chance? I'd love to photograph this species sometime, but they mostly avoid me. :)

Judd,
Thanks for great suggestion with gradient. Image was taken at wako. There are around 14 ducks hanging there on regular basis. I will be heading there on saturday morning. Shoot me an email if you want to join.