Pretty Female

You got great eye contact Walt. The entire bird looks slightly soft to my eye. Must have been fun to witness the frenzy over breeding rights.

I love the catchlight and the reflection, but it is a little soft. I have the same problem with female mallards in brownish water, at least with autofocus, and my manual focus skills need some work. Did you use manual or autofocus?

These hens sure do put up with a lot! I like the pose and the ripples in the water. Image seems a bit bright to me, with the whites a little hot. The s/h tool may help bring down some of the brightness if you haven't already tried it. Sharon

Thanks for all the good comments. I used auto focus Michele and it was hand held. I am still trying to figure out how to get better sharpness out of these kinds of shots and I certianly know that my manual focus skills would not do the trick.

Walt, Let me know if you figure it out. When there is so little contrast the AF doesn't have much to work with. Did you focus on her eye? I wonder if the AF would do better focusing on the white stripe on her wing. Then there's the option to close down the aperture to increase the DOF.

I've just started using MF a bit. Hopefully I'll get better over time. I know people who use MF almost all the time.
Michele

A touch soft as noted but a nice image of a female Mallard you've got here Walt. Don't be afraid to go up to iso 800 with that camera body, it does quite well at that iso and the extra shutter speed will help greatly when handholding.