Rocket Landing

[Morkel Erasmus]

Another MK! :t3

I was stoked to see this appear on my LCD after snapping a couple of frames of the super-fast Malachite Kingfisher flying from branch to branch at a hide in a local wetland sanctuary. You typically need to shoot at 1/6400 to 1/8000 for these guys, and they are SMALL! :eek3:

This is a juvenile with the beak being black, it turns bright red upon reaching adulthood.

Techs:
Nikon D3s with Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f7.1 @ 1/8000 SS @ ISO-4000
Manual exposure mode
Auto ISO
0 EV
Quite a crop
BG as shot

Added a hint of canvas on the RHS as it was edge-of-frame
(Many of you will know that I don't normally do this and like to keep my shots "as shot" but this one was too tempting as the bird was just too close to the edge) :e3

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent dynamic pose and wing position, I love the position of the feet and superb high ISO quality thanks to D3S!!! although you could have gone for 1/4000sec ISO 2000 too

[Dave Leroy]

What a perfect landing pose. Focus looks excellent and all at 4000ISO. Good for you. It is a very lovely photo.

[jack williamson]

Good for you Morkel, this is quite excellent! Very sharp, great landing capture, great bg, great color on the bird.

Jack

[Grace Scalzo]

Perfect timing! Love the super sharp head and eye.

[Frank Schauf]

Perfect dynamic pose. Very sharp an nice colours.

[Tom Rambaut]

wow = those feet, I'm amazed that this is iso 4000. great action captured - an excellent kingfisher image.

[Sandy McMillan]

The light, the pose, the composition, awesome!

[EzhilSuresh]

Absolutely stunning. Love the pose and colours.

[Brendan Dozier]

Awesome, Morkel!

[Roger Clark]

Really, Really REALLY, REALLY beautiful! Excellent composition, and exposure is spot on.
Did you do any noise reduction?

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks a million for the wonderful responses, folks! :bg3:

Roger - I did NO NR on the bird (I never do), and then 2 rounds of my normal NR workflow on the BG (I normally do this to my D3s images over ISO-1600 even though many of them don't need it)...this one had some noise on the BG due to the large crop.

[Morkel Erasmus]

For interests' sake, here is an exact out-of-camera image, uncropped, minor LR3 adjustments applied, resized and only sharpened bird slightly to account for downscaling softness.

I was following the bird to the LHS when it suddenly turned around and I halted my "panning motion" just in time to get him like this...:eek3:

[Morkel Erasmus]

...and here is a 100% crop of the head and some BG down to about 750 pixels wide...no processing...and remember - ISO4000 :w3
Roger - you will be more knowledgeable than me on this - but I've found that the key to a good high ISO image is good exposure. Obviously in crappy light the image will be noisier. In relatively good light like I had on this morning, I used the ISO to enable the high SS to be able to freeze this incredible erratic and fast bird. :c3:

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

That sharpness blows my mind. wow super killer pose and did I mention sharp? Great Job!

[gail bisson]

Very very nice. I can't believe the lack of noise and the fact that the detail is maintained so well despite the large crop,
Gail

[dankearl]

I want your camera and your PP skills.
I have never seen ISO 4000 look this good.
Excellent landing pose.

[Roger Clark]

...and here is a 100% crop of the head and some BG down to about 750 pixels wide...no processing...and remember - ISO4000 :w3
Roger - you will be more knowledgeable than me on this - but I've found that the key to a good high ISO image is good exposure. Obviously in crappy light the image will be noisier. In relatively good light like I had on this morning, I used the ISO to enable the high SS to be able to freeze this incredible erratic and fast bird. :c3:

Hi Morkel,
You are correct. The higher the ISO, the better the exposure must be (and expose to the right). For example, your camera must have on the order of 80,000 photon full capacity per pixel at ISO 100. On an 18% gray card, that gives a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of about (sqrt(0.18*80000)) = 120. At ISO 4000, the max signal is reduced to about 8000/40 = 2000 photons. Thus, S/N on an 18% gray card is sqrt(0.18*2000) = 19, or 5 times lower. For reference, a S/N ~20 is similar to the noise we see due to grain in very fine grained film. Your posted 100% pixel image shows "grain" similar to that fine grained film, so still pretty nice.

Roger

[Stu Bowie]

Absolutely superb mate. Knowing how small and being extremely quick, all I can say is that you have nailed this. Very well captured.

[Craig Kerr]

A truly beautiful image Morkel... One of the best MK landing images I've ever seen :-) Thanks for all the tech notes

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Just Perfect Morkel, it amazing how good this camera is at high ISO and not to mention how far one can crop this file and get excellent results. I love this shot, one of your best congrates :5

[Mark Itol]

Simply superb, Morkel. Great action and exposure. The D3s high ISO performance rocks!

[PRABIR BHATTACHARYYA]

Morkel, it must have been a job to capture this! And then process it to give the final shape.
Liked the pos, clarity and the methods of processing.
Thanks for sharing all the info too!

[Doug Brown]

Excellent choice of camera settings to freeze the action. Love the dynamic landing pose with outstretched feet.

[Raul Padilla]

ISO 4000, 1/8000 wow, extreme parameters, great photo

[Robert Holguin]

Wow!!! Simply superb!!!!
Very well done.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks a lot for the kind comments, folks!!