Northern Pintail Winter Stroll.

[Daniel Cadieux]

• Canon EOS R6
• EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM +1.4x III
• ƒ/8
• 437mm
• 1/3195s
• ISO 3200
• Daniel Caxieux
• Fri, 20 January 2023 12:12 PM
• Daniel Cadieux
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 12.0.1 (Windows)

This lovely lady is overwintering in a local duck pond, one that has shrinking open water due to ice, keeping company with hundreds of Mallards. Tough to isolate unless going for tight portraits - which of course I did. On this occasion she took a stroll out of the water with some other mallards, but broke loose of the pack for a few seconds. I was quite happy as Northern Pintails, although not rare during migration season and habitat is usually found hundreds of yards out into flooded fields so seeing one up close is a treat.

Canon R6 + 100-400L II + 1.4TC III @437mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/3200s., f/8, ISO 3200, handheld, FF, a couple of stray twigs in the BG removed, eye work to reduce glaring reflections in it, a touch of S/H on the snow to bring back the texture.

 

[kevin Hice]

Nice one Daniel, what I like is the snow and the raised foot. Vertical grasses in the background adds a touch and some perspective. I have pintails but never see any females. I guess when I get out they are nesting. TFS

 

[Colin Driscoll]

All that snow does make for wonderful lighting and BG, but sooo cold. You must really have gear and warmth management well sorted by now.
Nice walking action.

 

[Jonathan Ashton]

Super shot Dan, ideal timing and the surroundings really make for a most eye catching image.

 

[William Dickson]

This is very nice and different....The raised foot against the snow is a real eye catcher.....Great detail, and HA...The BG gives good depth to the image....Good work Dan.

Will

 

[Dorian Anderson]

I echo all the positives. A very nice result given the zoom and TC! Never seen a duck tromping through snow, so good job on getting something different!

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Dan ... love the stroll and the kicked up snow .
Super tones and colors ... very well processed .
A super winter scene , wish sometimes we would have that here as well :bg3:

TFS Andreas

 

[Kurt Bowman]

Love the foot moving through the snow! Very nice techs and processing as well. Nice work!