Hi All,
Curious what people think about this one. In post, I cropped a bit for comp., sharpened and dodged the foreground bird a bit, and reduced noise on the background. All C&C welcome.
D850
700mm, handheld
ISO 1600
1/640
f/5.6
Is this a composite: No
I think it’s beautiful. The front bird is in a perfect position, neck mimicking the curve of the left duck and head and tail clear of the right duck. Feels very peaceful. I feel like I’d like more room at the top and a little less at the bottom but honestly I can’t decide. Changing it would put slightly more emphasis on the rear birds which may not be your intent, except how you named it.
Spectacular, Lyle. Colors are awesome, detail in the foreground duck is fantastic, the flat water with the reflections is pleasing…I like everything about this.
I like the processing a lot… very muted on purpose?
OOF background birds are can be nice for me as a part of the scene.
They are too large for me in this one.
The main subject is perfect and low angle is always nice.
Hi Lyle, I like this shot as is. I’m first drawn into the front bird with impressive detail and nice profile look. The other elements - background birds and front reflection - are an additional point of interest. Nice frame.
I really like the idea. The dark setting really separates the birds. I might have a look at a slightly different composition. Less on bottom and a bit more on bottom and a pano crop. For me the reflections do not add much, having birds lower in frame makes them more impactful and they need a bit more headroom. I would also clean up the beach and water a bit esp. along water line. You picked great subjects and got really nice poses.
Hi Lyle
The framing is perfect. Everything brings my eye to the front Pintail. The two ducks in the background are wallpaper. When I first looked at this photograph the Pintail was making a statement, this is how you pose for a photograph.
Peter
Excellent, Lyle. The foreground male is very clean with a nice low angle and the male and female in the background are sufficiently out of focus to look like a background instead of insufficient depth of field.
Hi Lyle,
The light spot on the LH side in the dark brown area caught my eye. Clone it out and that would strengthen the comp quite a bit. the drake is exquisite. Well doner…Jim
Thanks, Dan. It’s funny you ask about muted processing. The light was very flat, so I have actually done quite a few things to increase contrast in the main subject, although I obviously didn’t want to overboard, given the flatness of the light.
Thanks, David. The lack of headroom is what bothers me about this photo. Didn’t have any more space in the original photo.
