There are many opportunities for great autumn colours early in the morning at the crack of dawn when photographing flying ducks. It may be cold near water before the sun rises, but it is worth it.

Canon 7D with 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/800, f4, ISO 400, +1 2/3 exposure compensation.

Full-frame with no composition crop for once. I normally don't use flash - I didn't use it here.

The normal digital corrections applied and a bit of despeckling of the otherwise untouched background after final sharpening.

Cheers,

Mike