I went to the nearby park in Apple Valley CA and wanted a nice photo of this male mallard.
I have the lens open almost all the way to create a soft foreground and background and aligned with my subject to get the focus. Comments welcomed.
R7 EF 100-400 ii f/4-5.6 with 1.4 extender 560mm f/9 1/1600 iso 800 HH
Some may say it needs a little more room on the left and right, but I think this pristine bird deserves to be seen just as it is here, filling the frame with blur fore and aft. Nice one, Dean.
Good job on blurring the water and there is excellent detail in the mallard; you caught that iridescent sheen nicely. I guess, from Mike’s comment, that I’m one of those who would like a bit more room on the left for the duck to swim into.
Great shot, Dean. The close up look gives a wonderful view of all the detail in the feathers. Beautifully done.
This is a very sharp detailed ID picture. If that was your goal, then I’d say you were successful.
I find it far too tight in the frame as anything other than a nice ID shot.
Hi Dean,
The details and the colors are great!
The water is nice and clear looking with no distracting bokeh.
It looks like a Happy Mallard.
Love the luminous, almost metallic green color on it’s head.
Nice image!
Excellent detail and color, Dean. The shallow depth of field works well. While I personally prefer a bit more room, this sure shows off the bird.
Thanks for all the comments, @Merv , @Dennis_Plank , @linda_mellor , @Keith_Bauer , @Allen_Brooks , @Mike_Friel . I think I will give a little bit more room in the future so I can make positioning the subject in other ways. I was happy that laying on the ground helped here with getting on the same plain as the duck. The setting of the aperture I am still learning about what works best. In this case f/8 is wide open and this one stopped down to f/9. I was not sure I could get the entire subject in focus. Looking at the image afterwards it seems like this worked.
There’s a good DOF Calculator online “HERE” and there are some good diagrams below the calculator.
There may also be some good apps for your cell phone.
Keep in mind that the DOF is based on the center of your subject, let’s say that the DOF is 2 ft., and the duck is 6 inches thick, the duck and only 6 inches behind the duck will be in focus but a full 12 inches in front of the duck will be in focus because you are setting focus on the side nearest to you.
And most important, it really matters how far the subject is away from you. With your 560mm at f9, the DOF is 1.26 ft. deep at 50 ft. distance (with the subject using only half of the DOF), but with the same focal length and aperture opening, DOF grows to 5.14 ft. deep if the subject is 100 feet away, but that’s only if you can’t or don’t increase the focal length to keep the duck the same size in the frame
The closer the subject is, the shallower the DOF will be if you’re using the same focal length and aperture opening.
If the duck was at 50 ft. from you and all of the duck was in focus, then the duck swam to about 25 ft. from you, suddenly only about 1/2 of the duck is in focus. The quick fix is to reduce focal distance to half or 280mm with the same f9 aperture and you’re all good again, the DOF is the same as when it was 50 ft. away. 
It can be a little confusing but a quick reference sheet really helps. I still use a quick reference sheet that I made up a few years ago. I just wrote down a few DOF distances along with a few subject distances at various aperture openings and focal lengths.
Using a laminated sheet of paper was quicker that referencing an app in my mind.
There may be a quick reference sheet for sale online somewhere, so a google search might pay off if you would rather use a sheet instead of an app.
Anyway, I hope that helped in some way.
BTW, Happy New Year
I love closeups and think of a shot like this as a very nice portrait rather than an ID shot. The light is nice, the water a very pleasant setting and you got very good detail, including the color on the head, which can be difficult to record.
Thank you @Merv and @Diane_Miller for the additional feedback. I will be spending a lot of time the next couple of weeks with birds in AZ and CA.
