Sleeping Duckling

[Paul Ricciardi]

Camera: Olympus E-1
Lens: Nikkor 400mm f/3.5 AIS (manual focus)
Exposure: 1/500
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 400 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

Took this one yesterday, ended up chest deep in marsh water to get a nice low angle of these sleeping ducklings. Momma duck was at first wary, but after about 30 minutes of slowly creeping my way in closer she relaxed and was tolerant of the funny looking thing in the marsh weeds making that "click click" sound.

I feel like the low angle is good and the photo has an intimate feel to it, but I do wish it was cleaner. The OOF green leaves in front of the ducklings are a bit distracting but it's the best angle I could get given how heavy the vegetation was.

Thanks for your comments.
-Paul

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the mood and angle and agree with your self-critique and would crop a bit off the bottom.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

agree for a bit crop at the bottom...beautiful angle and moment!

[Alma K Bailey]

Your hard work paid off here,, duckling looks so peaceful, Nice angle..

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Paul,

Agree with the advise on bottom crop, with a 3.5 aperture you went for shallow DoF, but BG seeps thru and is a bit busy IMO. Nice mood and great preparation you were dedicated to the shot, a few distractions to tug on the eye. Still, a sweet moment in nature you have a good eye for composition. Try and keep BG simple and clean, if possible.

[David Thomasson]

Sweet capture! Considering that you steeped yourself like a tea bag to get it, I would work at bringing out the full potential. To get rid of
the green foreground grass that's out of focus, paint on a blank layer in color mode, sampling color from the normal brown of fuzz. To darken that result,
paint on a blank layer in soft light mode; try black and 10% brush opacity.

I agree with others about cropping a bit off the bottom. You could also smooth out the foreground "rubble" a bit with some cloning. I would add a vignette,
but that's just my personal preference.

[Morkel Erasmus]

sweet shot and super effort from your side to get it! David's repost takes care of the most frustrating nits and I think with some more TLC you can be real proud of it...:)

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Repost is better, might take a small layer from the botton again.

[Paul Ricciardi]

Thanks for the kind words and advice as to fixing the OOF grass.

How's this?

[David Thomasson]

Nice work. That's looking much better. A little more painting will take out the last of that fog.

[Desmond Chan]

Sweet pose. Personally I prefer David's repost because it emphasizes the in-focus duckling more. I would crop some on the left, too. But, that's for another photo :)