Northern Shoveler

I like the looks of the water in this image, Jim.  The duck looks rather overexposed and slightly soft, plus the colors seem to be rather oversaturated and unnatural looking.  I'm not sure what's causing that-whether it's something you're doing in processing or the color space you're using.  Keep on posting and looking at what other people have done and what kind of comments they get. 

Hi Jim:

While you have some nice looking water ripples, the Shoveler exposure is hurting this image.  The duck is over exposed with no details showing in the whites.  Also soft.  I don't know how much you had to crop to produce this image.  That could be part of the issue.  Image (especially the larger version) is showing quite a bit of noise which should not be the case at ISO 400.  

I agree with the posted comments. This image had the potential to be really nice. I have found that it is really difficult capturing the right exposure on these guys. I typically underexpose so as not to blow the whites. If the image looks properly exposed on the camera screen, the whites will probably be revealed to be blown when viewed on the computer. I have highlight alert "ON" in my Canon 7D Mark II to prevent blowing the whites. I have found it to be very helpful.