-- Greg Rothschild (gnr@toast.net), December 17, 1998

Answers

Greg,

A few suggestions. Crop out the various surroundings to emphasize the duck. Also, the background would be better if it was out of focus and less distracting. Next time try a shot with a wider aperture. The duck WILL wait and hold its pose while you fiddle with the controls, right?? :)

-- Stan McManus (stanshooter@excite.com), December 18, 1998.

The first thing I see is that your focus is mostly behind the duck and the bird itself is probably not as sharp as it should be. Look at the ground - right in front of the duck it is out of focus, under the duck and behind it the ground is (relatively) in focus. That means that the plane of optimum focus is somewhere behind the duck.

The bird itself is beautiful, they always are, but the surrounding environment is pretty ugly (the bare dirt and weeds suggests a boat landing or something) and doesn't do the bird justice. Now that you've got this record shot of a wood duck, the next time you get a chance, you can take your time and get more favorable conditions for an esthetic combination of the bird and it's environment.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), December 21, 1998.