Spring Color

What technical feedback would you like if any?

What artistic feedback would you like if any? Crop OK? I think that he’s nice and level.

Pertinent technical details or techniques: D500 600mm f4 (1/400sec at f6.3, Iso 500) cable release. Levels, Shadows & highlights, Brightness & Contrast, Crop to 10x8. I like how this one turned out. The partly cloudy sky provided the nice light color of the water. This drake came in fairly close and the crop is quite minimal…Jim

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Jim, your cloudy conditions are interesting and quite different, as they really show off the bright colors of this guy compared to the relatively drab BG, and I don’t say drab in a bad way at all. Also the flat, uniform lighting and calm conditions are marvelous and make the reflection perfect. The details are super, too. I see some tiny dark specks, probably debris rather than sensor dust, but they don’t bother me in the least. Knowing your minimal crop, only minor suggestion is you might consider adding some canvas on the right if not in the original, and if not so easy with content aware. I really like the bow wave and the wake you have. Another option that might be worthwhile is consider introducing some color into the water. It’s such a nice image I think you can take it to the next level.

Hello Jim, I like this image very much. Beautiful subject and beautifully captured. It’s hard to tell where the sky stops in the water starts if it weren’t for being able to look at the bird and realize it’s swimming. LOL

As Bill said you could add some space in front of the bird using content-aware and you wouldn’t lose any resolution on the bird if you did. But it is nice as is.

I love the glass smooth water and perfect reflection, Jim. An excellent wood Duck image.

A pleasure to view. Good detail and colors and nice reflection.

Thank you. I went out hoping to get some singing redwings, but ran into a nice trio of wood ducks at point blank range. I’ll mess around with the crop and try to get a little more space out in front of the duck…Jim

Man oh man oh man! This is simply jaw-droppingly cool. I just don’t see how this could be any better. Stunning!

Hi Dave,

Thank you. I also have a shot of the hen wood duck too and both will be going up on the wall. Thanx for looking…Jim