Two Ducks in Flight

This pair of flying mallard ducks was photographed before landing in a nearby creek. This is the fourth frame in a sequence of five shots I took as they made a fast, banking turn and descended. All five images are pretty neat because the wings were cupped nicely in all of them. In this frame both ducks were banking at almost the same angle and they looked very synchronized.

I also liked the lighting. Hazy, late morning sun was behind me and this lit the birds very nicely. Clouds had begun to move in from the west to make the sky darker behind the ducks. I switched the camera to an auto exposure mode because of the rapidly fluctuating light levels caused by these advancing clouds. Handheld, 400mm lens, 1/2500 second at f5.6, ISO 250, aperture-priority mode with +.67 exposure compensation.