A Simple Photo of a Male Mallard Swimming

[Desmond Chan]

D700 200-400f4 VR hand-held. Manual exposure mode, all natural light. ISO 1600 f4 1/500s.

Nothing exotic. Sorry about that ! :o

C&C welcome and appreciated !!

[Harshad Barve]

simple but very beautiful compo , lovely species
TFS

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the calm water, high key and eye contact. Do you have one with an even better reflection of the head?

[Randy Stout]

Desmond:

You are showing off the drakes colors well on his head. Well exposed.

Because the top of the background has so little info, I might consider a small crop down from the top, perhaps 25% of the free space.

Nice high ISO performance.

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

This guy has some domestic duck hybrid tendencies (not a pure Mallard). I agree with Randy on a bit of a crop at top. I like the wake in front of the chest, and good high-key look to the image.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Is it primarily the white breast that clues you to his 'mixed heritage'?

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Yes, and also the bit of white under the chin. The breast is brown in pure Mallards, with a thin white "collar" delimiting the green neck. The shoulders and flanks are also normally much paler and grey...there is perhaps also some Black Duck mixed there too.

[Stu Bowie]

Excellent exposure on those greens of the head, always difficult, but you nailed it there. I agree taking a bit off the top will work.

[Desmond Chan]

Thanks guys for the comments and suggestions !!

[James Salywoda]

I like the high key effect on the water as this Mallard really pops that is such an incredible camera the high ISO really worked well.....