Harlequin Portrait

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Photographed at Barnegat Light in February. I was experimenting with different crops and am wondering if this one works for you, too.



1D3, 500f4, 1.4x, 1/800s, f/8, EC -0.67, ISO 400

[Arthur Morris]

I love the elegant crop and image design--stuff like this usually winds up being awkward. My favorite part of the image aside from the spectacular bird, the perfect head angle and exposure, is the way you gave the white feather a nice border. Depth-of-field is more than adequate.

[paul leverington]

Axel--this looks good to me! Wonderful detail and color. Great pose by the subject. You might try some background darkening around him and transtion to the upper right leaving that area untouched. Mostly behind his head I feel is too bright. Thats the only thing I'm seeing needing a tweak. Very beautiful portrait of one of the most glorious birds on earth.

Paul

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Great looking duck. Love the compo here and the BG. Exposure looks fine to me except the whites on head and face. I already checked the calibration strip and it's fine. May be these whites are like that, I am not familiar to this species.

[arash_hazeghi]

Perfect Axel, love the colors and BKGR

[Simon Bennett]

Crop works well Axel, as do the pale blue of the water and rufous on the bird.

[Harshad Barve]

Killer compo , expo , sharpness and Dof
TFS

[Indranil Sircar]

Excellent composition, Axel. As already said, this crop works very well. Great exposure and colors.

[Stu Bowie]

Good looking fellow, and would like to see how the rest of him looks. Excellent exposure all round, sharp, and good job on the eye. I would try and blend in the darker area of the BG infront of his beak.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, it's appreciated as always. Juan, the whites are in the 220 range, there is not much texture in the whites which makes it look this way. It's a bit tricky to expose these birds properly.

[Chris Kotze]

Super detail, comp and well exposed

[Jim Fenton]

I think thus is simply stunning....and I truly like the crop,HT, exposure...all of it.

[Marina Scarr]

This picture ROCKS. I absolutely love the crop you have chosen and the colors just pop right off of my monitor. Love the head turn. Is that a feather under the bird's chin?

[Morkel Erasmus]

lovely shot and the crop works for me Axel...

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful comp IMHO. Exposure and detail look great -- when I've tried to capture these guys at Barnegat they end up looking like they're painted wood decoys, but this has great texture. Oh well, they'll be back again soon.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Great bird and feather detail is fantastic. Not easy exp nicely done.

[Rich Steel]

Hi Axel

Its working well for me. A great combination of colours and detail. I think the blue background helps in firing up the orange plumage (if you think of the effect of opposites on a colour chart wheel).

Cheers

Rich

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Love the elegant look of this species against the stunning water Axel. Masterful piece! :)