I shot this one the other day at local park. I was using my 50D on tripod with gimbal head. I shot using my 300f4 @ 5.6 1/1600 ISO 800. I only cropped picture to show more of mallard and take out some empty space. I am still trying to learn how to use my software so struggling with the editing part of my pictures. In looking at my pic I see it could be much better especially with more direct sunlight on him but I just set up at the water and have just been practicing firing away at BIF making changes to my setting in Manual mode to try and find the right combinations. Any suggestions and/or advice will be greatly appreciated.
You captured a nice wing position here but I think you needed more light...possibly 2 stops or more....like maybe iso 1000 and f/4, the shutter speed was probably at the low end of being fast enough to get a sharp image (except for wing tips where you need something like 1/4000 or faster). The under-exposure robs your image of detail and makes it appear dark as well as having more digital noise. When you are experimenting watch the histogram and make sure you do not have the data piled up on the far left side, increase exposure to get the peak in the middle or to the right slightly without blowing out the highlights.
As for composition, most folks would say you need some empty space on the left for the duck to "fly in to" Also this bird was slightly past your position and going away slightly so you need to try to capture it a little earlier on it's flight path.
Hi Don- Welcome to BPN and to the ETL forum. Birds in flight photography is a real challenge as you have no doubt seen! Good advise from Joel. Don't be afraid to show some empty or "negative" space around your subject. In this case it almost always produces a pleasing result if you give some space in front of the bird so that it doesn't appear to be flying into a brick wall (the left edge of the image). Try to have the sun more or less behind you. Birds take off and land into the wind (as aircraft do) so it's often useful to have the wind blowing from the same direction as the sun is coming from- more or less at your back. I think with a looser crop, some lightening where needed (head and neck of bird), and a bit more sharpening, you would have an image to be proud of here.
Good advise above, we have an education and tutorial forum too and there is a thread I read from time to time which I provided the link below. It references some fantastic reading material as well:
Mallard in Flight
