In a hurry

[Stu Bowie]

Tony ( Whitehead ) was in town a few weeks ago, and I promised him a shoot at our local pond in Pretoria. It was great shooting with Tony again, and he was quite excited at the variety of ducks we have swimming around. Here is one of my images from that morning. The BG is natural.

Tony, now that you have been home for a few days, looking forward to some of your images.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/1250
F/6.3
ISO 640

Manual exposure
Hand held

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

Great color coordination here between bird and background.

Dynamic pose, nice angle in the frame.

The face looks like it could stand a bit more sharpening. I might reduce the size of the catchlight a bit, which will probably increase the apparent sharpness of the eye.

Nice that you got to shoot with Tony.

Cheers

Randy

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Stuart, nice angle on this guy...excellent BG and subject separation. with that wrap-around position, wud have loved sharp wings :-) probably a good situation not to expose all the way to the right in interest of SS.

[arash_hazeghi]

awesome dynamic pose and great BG Stu. you have mastered these shots, the whites are a bit bright on my screen.

[Raymond Lee]

I really love the flight pose! Sharp details! The whites are a little hot!

[Bill Dix]

Great pose, beautiful light on bird and BG. Whites also look a bit hot to me.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Super cool Stuart and I love the soft yet colorful bg. Looks like your dof and angle helped to blur all of the water and bg but unfortunately the wings as well? Still very nice.

[Dan Behm]

Stuart,
I really like this, Ideally maybe would be nice to have had the wings frozen, but the slight blur signifies motion, which I typically like...Perhaps wide open would have helped with that and the slightly hot whites, But a great image as is, I wish it were mine. The light here is magical on the bird and water, and the separation between bird and BG is about perfect adding interest yet not distracting. Fine work!!!

Dan

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice one Stu - great memory of the day. I like the banking turn and downswept wings with great eye contact. Colours are great. Thanks again for organising a great morning. My daughter is totally envious and looking forward to next year.

[Ken Watkins]

Stuart,

I really like the fact that this bird is appearing more often, great pose, great BG, who could ask for more?

[Stu Bowie]

Nice one Stu - great memory of the day. I like the banking turn and downswept wings with great eye contact. Colours are great. Thanks again for organising a great morning. My daughter is totally envious and looking forward to next year.

Thanks Tony. Hopefully you are around a little longer next year, as I would love to take you guys to more venues, and definately Pilanesberg again.

Thanks to all for the feedback and kind words. Always appreciated.

[Marina Scarr]

Stuart, this capture is pretty awesome as is! I have no problem with the blurred wings b/c the head is tack sharp. I love the pose and golden BG.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a stack for your comment Marina. Always appreciated.