by chphoto | Nov 25, 2014 |
A hen mallard, gliding in to the frozen pond, about to land with the rest of the ducks. ISO 800 – f/2.8 – 1/2000s – 300mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens. Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-25-2014 at 3:00...
by chphoto | Nov 25, 2014 |
Once again, an unusual duck pose. I am not really sure what this duck was doing with his head and feet turned to the side. It looks like he was doing some sort of dance. You will notice that the slow shutter speed caused a good deal of motion blur in the wings. The wide aperture also caused a very shallow depth of field, only the head of the duck is sharply in focus, but this image still catches my eye every time I see it. ISO 800 – f/2.8 – 1/640s – 300mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens. Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-25-2014 at 3:00...
by chphoto | Nov 16, 2014 |
You can see drops of water dripping off of this Drake Mallard, shortly after takeoff. The beautiful blurred background was created because the duck was relatively close to me and the background much farther away. Because the duck filled much of the frame of the camera I did not have to crop much of this photo. A bit more depth of field may have helped with sharpness, but since the photo is mostly viewed on the web, and has to be scaled down to save space, you can not easily notice much lack of detail due to narrow depth of field. ISO 400 – f/4.0 – 1/3200s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens with Canon 1.4x Teleconverter MkII. Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-16-2014 at 3:00...
by chphoto | Nov 16, 2014 |
Another photo of a drake mallard flying right in front of me. You can see the curly tail feathers which are a sign of an older bird. ISO 400 – f/4.0 – 1/6400s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens with Canon 1.4x Mk II Teleconverter Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-16-2014 at 3:00...
by chphoto | Nov 16, 2014 |
I have often seen photos like this and simply assumed that the feet had been edited out for some reason. That is not the case, this mallard has his feet tucked into his feathers to keep them warm. If you look closely you can see a wrinkle in his feathers where he has hidden his foot. This is an example of a photo where I could have probably used a lower ISO and/or smaller aperture to slightly improve the photo. If you examine the exposure information which I have included you will notice that this photo was taken with an un-necessarily fast shutter speed of 1/8000s. I could have used ISO 400 and the shutter speed would have been 1/4000s and still fast enough. I could have also adjusted the aperture one full stop down to f/5.6 and still had a shutter speed of 1/2000 which would have been more than adequate to freeze the motion. ISO 800 – f/4.0 – 1/8000s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens and 1.4x Canon Teleconverter MkII Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-16-2014 at 2:30...
by chphoto | Nov 16, 2014 |
A Drake Mallard in flight. You can see two curly tail feathers which is a sign of an older and more mature bird. ISO 400 – f/4.0 – 1/5000s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens with Canon 1.4x Mk II Teleconverter Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-16-2014 at 3:00...
by chphoto | Nov 16, 2014 |
A Hen Mallard flying very close and right in front of me with the snow covered landscape for a background. I would have liked to get her slightly more in the center of the frame. However this is exactly how it came out of the camera, with no cropping, so I was happy just to have the entire bird in the frame. ISO 400 – f/4.0 – 1/3200s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens with Canon 1.4x Mk II Teleconverter Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-16-2014 at 3:00...
by chphoto | Nov 16, 2014 |
As she descends to the frozen pond to land, she has her head down and would normally have her feet down. Due to the cold, windy weather she has them tucked into hear thick feathers until only a second before landing. I took this photo on one of the few sunny days in the month of November. Using ISO 400 and f/5.0, I was still getting a shutter speed of 1/2500s, more than fast enough to freeze the motion of the bird in flight. ISO 400 – f/5.0 – 1/2500s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens and 1.4x Canon Teleconverter MkII Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 11-16-2014 at 3:30...
by chphoto | Oct 31, 2014 |
A Mallard Drake lands on the water creating a giant splash. ISO 400 – f/4.0 – 1/2000s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens with Canon 1.4x Mk II Teleconverter Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 10-31-2014 at 1:30...
by chphoto | Oct 27, 2014 |
Hard to mistake the Drake Mallards green head and yellow bill. This is one of my favorite duck poses, feet down and wings slightly cupped. ISO 640 – f/4.0 – 1/1600s – 420mm – Handheld – Natural Light Canon EOS 7D Body and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens with Canon 1.4x Mk II Teleconverter Photographed in Eagan, Minnesota on 10-27-2014 at 4:00...
