Wood duck portrait

[A.M.D.A.]

Found it sitting in one of the farthest corners of my external hard drive... shot last year at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary.

Attachment 63302
Panasonic FZ7K, handheld.
1/80 second @ F4
ISO 200
464mm (35mm equivalent)
Center-weighted metering mode
Auto-focus

Thanks for looking, any comments greatly appreciated!

[scott-devon]

Beautiful shot, the eye is as sharp as it can be. I'm tempted to expand it to see if you are in the reflection...

[Dylan8i]

that is a nice shot, and i can see him (with out enlargment) in the eye reflection, at least a torso and arms/elbows sticking out.

[A.M.D.A.]

Thanks for the quick replies, Scott and Dylan.

Hadn't thought that I might be in the reflection, it is possible, though unlikely, since I was almost lying down on the ground in order to get an eye-level shooting angle of a not-so-tall bird.

Also, I think the photograph came out not too badly for being ISO 200 on a camera with a super-tiny CCD sensor...

[Eric D]

Cool shot!! Hard duck to get close to~~Eye focus is spot on!

[Ron Kruger]

Good shot. I'd like to see the uncropped version.

[A.M.D.A.]

Good shot. I'd like to see the uncropped version.

Here ya go, uncropped... I was only a few meters away, he was eying a bunch of mallards being fed near me.

Attachment 63301

[Ron Kruger]

Like someone else said, that's the first woodduck photo I've seen that focuses so well on the eye.
I recently sent some wildlife shots to one of the editors that uses a bunch of my stuff, and he emailed me back saying that one of the things he likes about my shots is how I always capture the eyes of the critters. I wasn't sure what he meant, but I got to thinking about it, and because I almost always shoot my 200mm on manual focus, instead of trying to just focus on the animal, I pick one feature, usually the eye, to concetrate focus. That may be why my photos have a certain edge to him. You can't always get that with auto-focus.

[Knight]

Indeed a very fine Portrait Alex ,as mentioned good detail and sharpness .

[A.M.D.A.]

Thanks, Ron & Knight !

[paulnj]

Very nice!!!!!!!!!

[A.M.D.A.]

Thanks, Paul.