Falcated Duck

“Falcated”, I read, means “sickle-shaped” and refers to the tertials flopping over the male’s backside. This is my favourite Korean duck - though I wish we had Wood Ducks here.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

Does the irregular reflection have a negative impact?

Technical Details

D500 + 150-600mm (@600mm) 1/640 f8 ISO 400

Topaz Denoise - Shadows/Highlights and Curves in PS.

This is cool, Mike, I have never seen this species, it always amazes me how some ducks and other water fowl can have such vibrant colors without going through a custom paint booth for birds.

BTW, the framing, focus, DOF and all of the other technical stuff look great!
I like the reflection as well, it looks like the duck has a plume on it’s head :slight_smile:

Thanks for sharing, Mike!

Thanks @Merv - the green is iridescence and one has to wait for the best angle to the sun to catch it. Each individual has its own varying sheen.

1 Like

Hi Mike,

Head coloration is very nice and feather detail is nice and sharp. Comp is good, maybe a little more space on the bottom for swimming room. Overall, I like the colors and the reflection as an added bonus. Well done,Jim

2 Likes

A very cool duck, Mike. I can understand why they named it after those plumes. Excellent detail and a nice composition. I do think it needs a bit of counter-clockwise rotation. I usually use the straightening tool in the crop menu in PS and run a vertical line from bill tip to the same location in the reflection (any easily found feature works. Here’s what it looked like after straightening:

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@Dennis_Plank - Thanks for that - it does look better now.