Kingfisher ( F )

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi folks ... my first ever photographed European Kingfisher :bg3:
Image taken at a set up for this lady .
I had no influence to the perch or anything else ... booked the tent and was left alone there :bg3: , trying my best to get some images .
KF was attracted by fish in the pond .

Canon EOS R3
EF 200 - 400 IS L at 560 mm
Tripod

F 5,6 ; Iso 12800 ; 1/640 sec

Processed with DPP 4 and PSCC 2023 ; slight crop

THanks for looking and commenting to my previous postings

Cheers Andreas

[Jonathan Ashton]

Sharp and well focused ......but I feel the colours are too vibrant -(especially the feet.)

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanx Jon for your comment .. yes some colors can be tempered , if one likes it . And the feet could go less dominant in their color , but only the feet ....:bg3:. The rest of the color has to stay as it is ... IMHO.

Cheers Andreas

[Brian Sump]

Andreas, congrats! Would love to shoot that species.

I really like your take on this one. Is it the same lady some of the other friends across the ponds shoot?

The green/gray backdrop is sort of mysterious. What is it? It lets the subject pop nicely.

You all are lucky to have some moss and lichens on sticks there and it helped this one a good bit. Colors look really nice to me - I was going to ask if you changed anything with regard to noise then I noticed it was at 12,800 wow. Still, a bit of grain and might be worth a little massaging to see if you can tuck it in a bit more.

Would wish for a little head turn but having watched KFs hunt, this is a very typical pose. Overall, a great first capture of this one :-)

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Brian ,
no this is a KF lady that does live about 200 km from my home , whereas the other KF frames has been shot in UK .... I think ... definitely not " my KF " .

The BG is pond and vegetation , as I had do shoot ever so slightly downwards ... due to the location .

Nothing changed in terms of noise in general , just reduced the NR a touch to see how it performs .... could have upped the effect for the very clean BG . I think it is not necessary to remove all grain .... matter of taste .

I do agree about the head turn ... I have so many images with the head turned away even more :e3. But as this was my first work with a KF ... I learning to deal with the poses and perch placement , to " force " the KF into a better position .

Cheers Andreas

[Dorian Anderson]

This is a fine result! I don't mind the head angle as the the bird is clearly focused on fishing. The colors look fine to me, but it's been years since I've seen this species.

At first glance I thought the IQ was just below your usual standard, especially on the face; then I looked at the shooting data and saw ISO 12,800; that would explain it.
I agree with Brian that it might we worth seeing what else you can extract. I'd be thrilled with this image regardless.