Mallards

[Ryan Schain]

I don't often go out of my way to shoot Mallards, but while shooting some mergansers I noticed these two pairs to my left, and crawled over to get a few shots.



Canon EOS 7D
Canon EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 L IS

1/800
f/6.3
400 mm
ISO 400
+1/3 EV

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Ryan, interesting comp. I liked the idea a lot. The image is a little too bright I think. Other suggestion is cropping a bit off the top and show some more bodies below...of course if you have it in orig frame. The rightmost duck is too close to the bottom edge I feel.

[Randy Stout]

Ryan:

Lots of fun here. Agree with Kaustubh that the image is too bright. I reduced it by 1/3 stop, which helped with the brightness and brought out the nice subtle clouds in the background
If the left most bird had been just a bit more to the left, so its bill was clear of the front drakes neck, it would have been even stronger, IMO. I don't know if you had time to crawl around a bit for different angles however.

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

I love the image design and your great eye for the juxtaposition. While the image is a bit on the bright side (especially the green head of the main subject) I believe that the biggest problem is the lack of light on that bird's head caused by the head being turned slightly away.....Other wise it rocks. Three out of four is pretty good except in bird photography :)