Duck!

[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.

[kkraczek]

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

[Sebastian]

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

[another view]

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

[PuckJunkey]

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

[Ultra Magnus]

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..

[Chunk]

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.

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.

[Old Timer]

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.

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.

[Norman]

Out of curiosity is your lens a Nikon D lens?

[Lava Lamp]

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.

[natatbeach]

this is flawless...well done....

[Elysian]

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

[gahspidy]

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

[JimK]

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

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

[paulnj]

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?

[JimK]

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

[paulnj]

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

[GoDive30]

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.

[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.

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.

[JimK]

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