Hooded Merganser Portrait Yawn.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Two Hooded Mergansers were resting under a tree close to the edge of a local pond. I took some nice fall setting pictures with fallen leaves around them and was satisfied. Knowing they are normally skittish, I then tried a long and slow belly crawl towards them (though goose dung, hooray), thinking I had nothing to lose. It was well worth it as I was able to approach for full-frame portraits, including this one.

Lots of OOF ducks and geese were in the pond in the BG, so careful alignment was critical to hide them either out of the frame or behind the subject.

Canon 7D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/800s., f/7.1, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, FF. Desaturated the tongue as it was glowing red, cloned / patched out a stray grass blade, and toned down the two yellow leaves at bottom right via burning and clone (at 30% opacity).

[Mital Patel]

Daniel,

this is indeed beautiful image you have got here.
And i like the perfect size of the foreground oof grass .

[gail bisson]

I love it! The detail is awesome. I love the little serrations in the beak. Lovely BG. Well done,
Gail

[Kiran Poonacha]

Nice design here DC, great details too.. nicely done.

[Gary Esman]

Sharpness, eye, beak, background all looks awesome. Congrats on this, very fearful birds.

Gary.

[Nancy Bell]

Awesome image! You took a brown duck, added wonderful feather detail by crawling through goose poop, waited for a great open mouth & postioned yourself for interesting foreground & bkgd colors. Very well done and thank you for your thoughts on approaching this duck.

[Bill Dix]

Great yawn. Beautiful BG, and oof FG works well. Love the feather detail and serrated mandibles. Very handsome.

[Nico Steenberg]

Super sharp and well exposed with great detail and colours. Comp works well.

[Karl Egressy]

This is truly amazing portrait, Daniel. The open beak, showing those little teeth like edges look great.

[annmpacheco]

What a beauty you have here and wonderful effort. I might be tempted to remove the wee bit of grass/shadow in LBR, however then it might appear as if it were sitting on a cliff at the edge of the blue sky, mmmhh, it's \a terrific image.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

A terrific image Daniel. I like everything about it. The killer pose, the bg colors, the details and the comp. Great work!

[Harshad Barve]

terrific image Dan , love the design & details
TFS

[MohsenVahedipour]

Excellent Sharpness & details with perfect lighting conditions. Great pose. Lovely gradient in BG. TFS

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Great fun here. I don't usually see them in their eclipse plumage. Excellent subject isolation, exposure and sharpness. Mouth open a real plus.

I might try a version with the luminosity of the grass toned down just a bit, minor point.

You should really just have a few plastic jump suits so when you get home you can just hose them off!

Were these guys able to fly, or flightless due to molting?

Cheers

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks everyone!!

Randy, it was alot fun indeed! I'm not sure if these two were juveniles, or females, but they were very mobile and swift on the wing with quite fresh plumage (they actually fly between two ponds at this location)...so no, they were not flightless. Hopefully they'll hang around a little while...and be joined by an adult breeding plumaged male (I wish)

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Daniel, what a shot....masterfully executed. BG is as sweet as it can get. Loved the details and the FG blur. Very good IQ for that iso.

that lively eye has made a big difference.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Sweet Dan. I like the bg and the open mouth. Nice dof too

[Jim Crosswell]

Excellent image Daniel! I like the low angle, composition, details, sharpness and open bill.

[Melissa Groo]

I absolutely love intimate portraits like this. What a wonderful job you've done here, Daniel. Love the OoF grass, the gradient soft BG, the details on the bird. And congrats on getting close, they sure are tough!