Duck!

I photographed this duck (I think it might be a mallard, but the beak is the wrong color) with a D70 and 75-300 lens. It is cropped some. Please share your comments and suggestions.

This is a beautiful photograph... I love the combination of color and pattern. The background works nicely. Nice work!

REALLY nice, great composition, DOF and the exposure seems dead-on. Well done.

Great composition. Very sharp, good clean background. Only comment is that it's not a Mallard... Not sure what it is though. Nice work.

Wow. What an excellent composition. I really like how you didn't try to include the whole duck (sometimes less is more), and the colors and sharpness really stand out as well. Perfect.

Incidentally, that might be a female Mallard... they can have orangish bills. The plummage looks right though I'm not waterfoul expert by any stretch of the imagination. Here's a neat site that might help.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/program...llard_dtl.html

Ya know, I was just looking at some other photos, that are good photos but not "my kind" of photo. I left them thinking, "I think I just like simpler compositions." So, I saw your title, duck, and thought lets see, another bird picture (not that bird pictures are bad), but when I saw your image it was very refreshing. I love the compostion. As I look at it, my eye constantly gets drawn into the duck's eye, like he's staring right at me. Very nice..

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Originally Posted by Lava Lamp

I photographed this duck (I think it might be a mallard, but the beak is the wrong color) with a D70 and 75-300 lens. It is cropped some. Please share your comments and suggestions.

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I don't know what the competition was, but this one is the winner. Very nice shot with terrific composition. Nearly monochromatic with those two areas of great color. Nice that there is a catchlight in the eye.

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Originally Posted by Lava Lamp

I photographed this duck (I think it might be a mallard, but the beak is the wrong color) with a D70 and 75-300 lens. It is cropped some. Please share your comments and suggestions.

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Another very high quality post from you. Love the way you cropped down and gave us a portriat of this individual rather than a standard duck image. Beautiful color and saturation that eye just bores right through you.

Out of curiosity is your lens a Nikon D lens?

Thank you all for your generous comments and for the useful reference site. Norman, the 75-300 is an older autofocus, non "D" lens. It seems to work fine with the D70.

this is flawless...well done....:)

Great colors, light, framing, composition, dof, focus, sharpness, no distrations, what more can we wish for? Well done!

Excellent, not the typical bird shot. . .thanks to your creativity.

That's a very nice photo of a Cape Teal. A native of southern Africa.

http://www.kenyabirds.org.uk/cape_teal.htm

This is an exotic bird!! as in captive/ excaped duck that I believe may be a south american TEAL species ... female definately. the closest the US species get to this appearance is WINTERING GADWALL.

Where did you shoot it and were their more than one?

Paulnj - it is an African species - follow the link I posted and you will see.

oops.... well it was a TEAL :) 2 BIRDERS ARE BETTER THAN ONE ;)

shhhhhh....this site is as slow as they get..... I open 7 pages and come back in a 1/2 hour...SERIOUSLY!!!!!

So I must have just missed your post :)

I love the shot, the duck is not a Mallard, not sure what it is. This is one of the best duck pictures I think I have ever seen and I read alot of outdoor magazines. :D

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Originally Posted by Lava Lamp

I photographed this duck (I think it might be a mallard, but the beak is the wrong color) with a D70 and 75-300 lens. It is cropped some. Please share your comments and suggestions.

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Thanks for all the comments. I've taken so many photos with the D70, I couldn't remember where this was taken, but cross-referencing the date, it was taken at Busch Gardens in Tampa. Based on Jim K's link, it is certainly a cape teal. I thought it was almost a throw-away shot - it's nice that some people like it. Thanks.

Definitely not a throw-away shot even if the duck is captive, it is still a very nice photo.