Posted by Elliott Neep on April 30, 2006 at 3:19 PM
Hi All,
Thought I'd stay with the common subjects with a mallard. Often overlooked, but quite a challenge trying to capture one in flight. This is a recent grab shot taken with my mate Dave Courtenay at Lake Geneva. Had a great couple of days and now have about 1,000 pochard, red-crested pochard and tufty portraits and some good action sequences. Out of focus 'blob of a bird' in top-right corner cloned out.
Camera Model: Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec (Manual)
Aperture: 6.3; ISO: 200
Focal length: 600mm (EF 300mm F2.8 ISL & 2xTC)
Handheld; Centre focus point lit
Very nice Ell-Hoped you tipped your guide well, must be a top bloke-Nice saturated colours and like the water reflection under the wings
Posted by Sean Bolton on April 30, 2006 at 3:37 PM
Hi Elliot
An excellent flight shot. Nice and sharp around the head/eye area. Colours look excellent although the feet look a bit too 'red'. Maybe try toning down the saturation on the feet area.
Composition wise I feel the bird is slightly too central. I would crop slightly from the left hand side so the mallard is flying into the frame.
From experience this type of shot is very difficult to achieve, this is an excellent result.
An excellent result,I always find it tricky to get the Mallard with a good pose and the right size in the frame but this one works superbly.
I feel that slightly de-saturating the red feet would round this shot off nicely as they tend to draw the viewers eye away from the ducks head.
Not sure why the feet are bright red. It was shot on the 1DS's 'High Chroma' setting for added punch. I just converted it without alteration and hey presto! I found the easiest way to photo Mallards in flight is at take-off and landing. This one is coming into land and has applied the airbrakes, i.e. It has stopped flapping and is instead slowing itself in the air by fanning out its wings. This gives the the photog a really good opportunity to get maybe one or two frames... they are still travelling at about 30-40mph! To get really good practice, do wildfowl with two people and take turns feeding the birds some distance apart. Many of the birds quickly fly to new feeding spots when bread and seed are chucked in the water.
Discussion
7 repliesThought I'd stay with the common subjects with a mallard. Often overlooked, but quite a challenge trying to capture one in flight. This is a recent grab shot taken with my mate Dave Courtenay at Lake Geneva. Had a great couple of days and now have about 1,000 pochard, red-crested pochard and tufty portraits and some good action sequences. Out of focus 'blob of a bird' in top-right corner cloned out.
Camera Model: Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec (Manual)
Aperture: 6.3; ISO: 200
Focal length: 600mm (EF 300mm F2.8 ISL & 2xTC)
Handheld; Centre focus point lit
An excellent flight shot. Nice and sharp around the head/eye area. Colours look excellent although the feet look a bit too 'red'. Maybe try toning down the saturation on the feet area.
Composition wise I feel the bird is slightly too central. I would crop slightly from the left hand side so the mallard is flying into the frame.
From experience this type of shot is very difficult to achieve, this is an excellent result.
cheers
Sean
Tim
I feel that slightly de-saturating the red feet would round this shot off nicely as they tend to draw the viewers eye away from the ducks head.
a cracking flight shot.
John
Aberdeen