Wood Duck- Albq, NM

[Amy Marques]

They have no idea how beautiful they are.
I look forward to learning from critiques. Thanks for looking.



Canon EF400mm f/5.6L USM on 1D Mark III
1/1600s @ f/5.6, ISO 400
Manual exposure

[Danny J Brown]

Hi Amy - Stunning image of a gorgeous bird. Something a little different with the open bill and the visible serrations. Colors are great and well-controlled. The rosy-bronze background is really special here as I haven't seen the color in many photos. I also love the sweep of the feathers across the head. Great shot.

[Harshad Barve]

Beautiful image , lovely compo, open beak , nice hairdo, killer BG
TFS

[Doug Brown]

Terrific pose with great water color. Nice sharpness. The bird looks a little underexposed.

[david cramer]

Beautiful image, Amy. I agree with Doug, and would lighten the bird.

[ChasMcRae]

Nice bird and love background water.
Lighten bird but very carefully to balance with background.

[Ofer Levy]

Stunning image Amy!!! Excellent detail. sharpness and the colours are superb! Just opened it up a bit - levels and S/H and also applied some cooling filter. Please let me know what you think.
Cheers!

[Doug Brown]

Repost looks good to me.

[Amy Marques]

Thank you all. And it looks great, Ofer. I will repost my corrected version after I try my hand at reworking it.

[David Fletcher]

Nailed this Amy. Prefer the OP as has more depth: (repost looks a tad thin, color depth wise). Gorgeous bird. Congrats.

[Dan Busby]

Amy - you have a real gem here. My only problem is that it is almost too much! Wood Duck is so hard to photograph without over-doing the colors and patterns. I think the (although beautiful) background competes with the stunning detail of the bird. Just my thoughts - and obviously not those of most.

[Amy Marques]

Here is my reworked image. I hope everyone finds it much improved- I know I do. Thank you for all your wonderful critiques.

[david cramer]

Lovely rework, Amy. Only other suggestion I have is to vignette the corners on the right side to slightly darken them to balance with other corners. Your rework does a great job of both lightening the bird and keeping it in good contrast.

[Jan Fourie]

very good array of colours and good detail
jan

[Amy Marques]

Good point, David. Here it is with the vignette.

[arash_hazeghi]

Fantastic image, each repost is an improvement, well done.

[James Salywoda]

I like your latest repost Amy the colors and mood captured are very nice the open bill is an added plus these are such beautiful ducks....:)

[Adams Serra]

Hi Amy,
Great looking duck and BG. Tell Shawn i said hello.

[Suzanne Huot]

All I can add is this is just a plain beautiful image.one of the besxt of this species Amy

[Amy Marques]

Thank you all for your kind words!

[Ofer Levy]

Hi Amy, reposts look great! I prefer the first one though as I see no reason to darken the UR corner. Since the duck is heading to the right I feel that "blocking" the right side is not an improvement.

[Amy Marques]

Hi Amy, reposts look great! I prefer the first one though as I see no reason to darken the UR corner. Since the duck is heading to the right I feel that "blocking" the right side is not an improvement.

That's a good point, Ofer. But though it may not be an improvement to some it certainly does not hurt.