I found another photo of him I like. A lot.
Three days ago I posted three flight shots of a Cinnamon Teal drake and told readers I had others. What I didn’t say was that those others had various ‘flaws’ that prevented me from posting them. Those flaws include some photos where the duck was too close to the frame edge for a composition I like and/or photos where I perceived the bird being too small in the frame.
What I didn’t take into account was the Canon R5’s huge file size, which allows me to crop significantly more than I have in the past and still have plenty of pixels for quality images. I spent 13 years shooting with cameras in the 10 – 20 MP file size range so this creature of habit still has a hard time remembering that the R5 gives me 46 MP to play with.
So yesterday I actually opened one of those photos that in the preview screen looked to be too small in the frame and realized that a.) I had plenty of pixels to make the duck large enough in the frame for my tastes and b.) I like the photo, a lot.
1/6400, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5. Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in
So with that long-winded preamble, here it is.
Even though there’s still water dripping from him, this photo was taken quite a while after he took off from the water as evidenced by his feet being tucked under his tail. So he’s in full flight rather than still being in the process of taking off. Ducks are speedy and often erratic in full flight so I don’t get photos like this one very often.
The entire duck is sharp, I like his flight posture, I didn’t have to add canvas for composition and those colors are to die for (the background blue is water, not sky). I could wish for a head turn toward me and better eye contact but that would be greedy of me.
I’m not above being greedy but I do try to keep it under some semblance of control.
Ron
sensational flight shot R
Charlotte Norton
Thanks, C.
GLORIOUS.
Thanks, EC.
He’s a handsome boy! That bit of chartreuse is lovely and his bill position makes him look like he’s smiling for his picture.💚
Marty, I can never quite remember what color chartreuse is, so now I’ll have to look it up. Again…
The 💚 is a hint. 😉
I guess I’m old fashioned, or a bad speller, or both. I just call that green… 🙂
The light defining each feather, mmmmm!
Agreed.
Love that photo! Incredibly beautiful, and it shows off some of the subtle coloration that we don’t always see on that duck.
Thank you, Quentin.
This is one of the most beautiful photos I have ever seen. It is breathtaking..
Thank You and Take Care,
Kaye
Good to know you like it that much, Kaye. Thanks.
Beautiful shot, very sharp, outstanding colors and position, and the head turned just enough toward you to get that very difficult catch-eye with red on a similar color. And of course we should give some credit to the beautiful Cinnamon Teal for his contribution.
Everett, the teal gets a lot of the credit, maybe the majority of it.
They are such pretty birds. Love it.
Agreed. Thanks, Jo.
That is a fantastic image, Great job!!
Thank you, Dick.
Beautiful! All his colors REALLY shine including the bit of blue at the base of his wing. 🙂 That IS a huge difference in MP’s to play with to your advantage.
Wickersham’s Conscience post this morning was amusing if only because “wind” is a fact of life here……. 😉
Thanks, Judy. I’ve been out shooting for the entire morning so I haven’t yet read WC. I will soon.
Not only the fully-saturated colors, but the almost 3-dimensional quality of
the wing feathers–especially the flight-feathers, because of the strong side-
light — is just STUNNING ! No wonder you “like it—a lot”. I do, too !
Thanks very much, Kris.
Plato theorized that any object we see is an imperfect representation of the ideal form of that object. He hadn’t seen your photo of this duck.
Lyle, I can see that I need to hone up on my Plato. That one’s new to me. Either that or I’ve forgotten it.
I’m with David. Wow!
Thanks for sharing your process too.
Glad you like it, Michael. Thanks.
I fully understand why you like it – a lot. Wow!
Thanks, David.