African Jacana with water lily

[Chris van Rooyen]

I have waited a along time for this image i.e. getting a jacana with a lily in the same frame, both pin sharp. Finally my luck held and I got this image in October in the Okavango Delta.

Camera Model: NIKON D3
Date/Time: 2009:10:24 16:33:58
Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: 8
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Lens: 500mm with 1.4 TC
Focal length: 700mm

[Chris Labuschagne]

WOW Chris you make even the ordinary look SUBLIME.
This is absolutely fantastic!!!!

[Rob Drummond]

Bird, water-lillie and mid-stride - fantastic Chris. Beautiful light also

cheers
Rob

[Kiran Poonacha]

Wow, such a beautiful frame Bhai, just loved the feel it gives, the flower and the birds pose work so well.. congrats

[Nevil Lazarus]

Chris that is really lovely. The colours blend so beautifully - even the blue on the Jacana matches the blue of the lily. I love the toes...!!

[Harshad Barve]

This is spectacular shot Chris , loved every pixel of this image
TFS

[denise ippolito]

Chris, Very nice to get the lily coming up out of the water and the foot raised like that.Colors are very nice and add to the image design. Your bird looks sharp and well exposed.A very pleasing image.

[Lorant Voros]

It was worth waiting for this one. Fantastic composition, nice low angle, colors, raised-foot pose. Nice work again, Chris.

[Anand Kavalapara]

Great framing and the bird in motion makes it outstanding.

[Bryan Hix]

Beautiful shot. Love the giant foot and the flower is wonderful.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

You really really nailed this one. You not only got the habitat with the lily...you also got (a) the huge feet illustrating its function (b) awesome head angle (c) details in the feathers and (d) perfect placement. Not to mention the catchlight and the exposure. Huuuge congrats

[Betsie Storm]

Just adding my respects, Chris, your patience certainly paid off. Love the one foot in mid-stide.

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

OMG!!!! This is wonderful. The angle makes it to me. The lily is really cool. Worth to wait for it.

Szimi

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very cool image, I like the setting, light, striding pose, sharpness and these huge feet. Is this a small bird or a huge flower?

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Lovely image Chris! Like the low angle and foot-up pose. Exposure is as always spot-on.

[Chris van Rooyen]

Thanks for the comments guys! Axel, the African Jacana is around 30cm in length.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Stunning image Chris, so typical of the Okavango! Lovely crisp detail in both the bird and plant, with a super BG!

[Jay Gould]

Chris, you NEVER fail to provide pleasing images. Love the way the colors compliment each other.

[Rod Warnock]

Stunning image, Chris !! Brilliant use of selective focus plus a low view point adds to the presentation
Thanks for showing
Best regards
Rod Warnock

[Krijn Trimbos]

What a great shot Chris!! Love the light, pose and habitat included. Compositionally I think you did a terrific job but some part of me thinks that it would be even better with the bird a little more to the right of the frame. The general idea about subjects is to not put them to close to the frame while making your composition in the field as to have enough room for the subject to move into. To my eye it feels like the flower sort of frames off the rest of the image from the bird giving it sort of a cramped feel. Maybe taking a bit more of the left would do the trick??? I am not trying to be extensively negative, but this is my initial reaction. Apart from this little point I absolutely love this shot, and think you did a terrific job on the low angle. Well done man!