Australian Wood Duck

[Paul Burdett]

One of my better ducks in flight effort since moving to Nikon.

D500/500PF, 1/1000th sec, f5.6, iso640, manual HH processed in ACR, PS. Comments/suggestions always appreciated. Cheers.

[Brian Sump]

Paul, this is a beauty. You must have been close?

Love the color palette, really nice detail across the subject. The 500 at its finest I believe.

Composition is strong. Only thing that could have improved would be a touch more posterior wing position but I'd take this as is my friend.

Well done!

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Brian...thanks so much for the kind feedback. I agree re the wing position...cheers:cheers:

[David Roach]

They just keep getting better and better... Love the soaring pose of this very interesting duck. The BG is way cool and the bird in the perfect spot. TFS

[Jack Backs]

Very nice image. Nice angle on the bird and sharp. Agreed, super background.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very nice!! That near wing really rocks! Sharp on the face. A bit of funkyness on the eye to fix (some red dots and a red line), but other than that really nicely done.

[Mike Poole]

Nicely done Paul, not the favoured BPN wing position but I like the gliding pose - its natural. Great details, nice work

Mike

[Paul Burdett]

Thanks so much everyone for the feedback..it really is appreciated.
Daniel: I think I went a little overboard with the sharpening of the eye...will attend to your suggestions. Cheers.

[gail bisson]

Well done Paul!
Nice and sharp, good incoming pose, nice BG.
Gail

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Gail...thank you. As silly as this seems (or not), I've been after a decent Duck in flight Duck shot for years...they're usually too far away, but this is actually a lucky shot as I was focused on other birds at the time when a group of three ducks was zooming past me. Luckily my camera settings were more or less ok at the time. Cheers.

[Arthur Morris]

Ditto all the positives above. I love the evenly lit detail of the near underwing. It looks more like a goose than a duck :)
with love, artie

[Paul Burdett]

Cheers Artie...always appreciate your feedback:cheers:

[Dorian Anderson]

Interesting bird, great action, and generally good techs make for a strong image. The detail on the underwing is great. 1/1000 is pretty slow for speedy birds like this, and the slight lack of sharpness I see is surely attributable to that setting. I'm usually at 1/3200 or even 1/4000 at for waterfowl flight work. But a very nice image outside that consideration.

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Dorian: Thank you for the feedback. You're on the ball as regards shutter speed...I'm normally on 1/3200th sec too, but as I said in my reply to Gail, my settings were different at the time of capture due to other birds I was photographing at the time the Ducks came over. One thing I liked about the Canon 7Dii was the C1 C2 C3 presets, which the D500 doesn't have...to allow for quick settings changes. Cheers:)

Update: Just realized the D500 has "banks" to store settings, but I haven't explored that yet...until today!:bg3:

Update v1.2 lol Figured out the "banks", so should be ready for anything now (hopefully)