Black-bellied Whistling Duck

[Gayle Clement]

I was concentrating on a brightly lit rookery in south Louisiana when a flock of black-bellied whistling ducks flew overhead. I started to just ditch the photos because I wasn't able to get much detail in the ducks because of the lighting but I rather like this one. What do you think?


Nikon D2Xs
Nikkor 500mm f.4
Nikkor 1.4 TC-EI

1/500s @ f/5.6
ISO 200
700mm

[Robert O'Toole]

Like the wing position and the sharpness looks good.

The duck looks too dark for me, I would open it up even if the BG goes white. If you want to keep some color in the sky you can lighten the duck with a quick mask or layer mask. Not sure if this is straight or a crop but cropping some would look better also.

Robert

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice pose and eye contact. I agree that it looks too contrasty and I would go for a tighter crop.

[Gayle Clement]

Thanks to Robert and Axel for the responses. I've lightened the photo, reduced the contrast, and cropped a bit (it was almost full frame.)

[gary rouleau]

I really liked the first version -I might just lighten the head a touch.