I am thrilled to have found this forum today! I've been shooting birds for the past year and a half, and it has become quite an addiction.
A couple of days ago I was shooting wood ducks while hiding in a bush at one of my favorite swampy locations, and I was so excited when this gorgeous Mandarin duck slowly swap by, what a surprise, really got my adrenaline pumping.
I shot it with a D200, 300 f/4, TC-1.4, 1/200 sec at f/5.6 with -0.3 EV, ISO500. I am wondering if a touch of flash would have helped make the colors pop a bit more, but I am very happy to have captured a number of images, including three more mandarin's together on a log, out in the water. I wish I could have been back out shooting today....
What a beauty Graham. I would probably start shaking so bad if one of these were coming that I wouln't be able to pust the shutter button. :) First one I have ever seen and thanks for such a grand image and beautiful duck!
They sure are pretty aren't they. I'm not one to usually jump right up and say "lower angle," but in this case a lower shooting angle might have helped smooth out the green, gloppy looking stuff in the BG.
I don't think you needed flash (others may disagree) and the colors look very natural and pleasing to me.
Is this full frame or cropped? If you have room (or are up for adding it in PS) a little more room on the right would help give the duck somewhere to go.
Hi Graham, and welcome to BPN. What a beautiful duck...those colors are fantastic aren't they! I would like to see a lower perspective, and wish the water was cleaner...of course, nothing you could do about that. The pose is great, and if you have cropped this, a bit more room o top and to the right would be nice. Looking forward to more of your posts.
wonderful shot, I think you did well under these conditions, and a lower perspective may not have been possible... when I get into a low lighting situation like this, I try to fire when the subject is as still as possible, to help sharpen the image., I hope you have another go at this bird., good luck.
A beauty of a bird. In this case (because the water is so full of stuff) I would go for a lower angle. If you had a clean patch of water then the reflection shot would have been sweeeeeeet!
Very nice. A lower angle would of been nice, I don't know if you had that option, also it looks a little soft in the head area. Focus looks like it hit the wing.
Thank you everyone, your encouragement and advice is greatly appreciated.
I did crop the image a little bit, unfortunately on the right hand side, because a piece of floating bark looked very distracting, and unsightly to me. I really didn't have an opportunity to shoot at a lower angle because I was hiding in shrubbery and resting my camera on top of a small log. I keep a very lightweight synthetic ground cloth in my gear pack and next time I’ll try to achieve a more pleasing lower perspective.
Overall the image looks relatively sharp on my monitor, except for the tips of the brown sail-like feathers as well as around the eye. Upon hearing my shutter click the duck opened its mouth, which would have been a gorgeous shot, but it turned out much softer than the image posted.
I feel fairly happy with this image, mostly because I was so surprised to be with one of these birds, for the first time. They really are sweet looking creatures, and a few shots of them preening in the sun came out nice, almost comical in appearance.
Thanks again and I’m very happy to have become a member.
Your colors look fine, you don't want more than that. The rest of the suggestions given sound good to me and I'll only add that we hope to be able to help you improve you skills :)