The pied Piper of the Kingfoshers

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Camera : Canon 1D MK III
Lens : Canon 600mm f4 IS
Shutters : 1/2000
Aperture : f5
Speed : ISO 1000
Exp Compensation : -.33 EV

Had to go high on the speed to ensure sharpness , as this was made from a rocking boat at Lake Naivasha , Kenya . These Pied Kingfishers are particularly bold , as they allow the boats to come quite near , but the boatmen at Naivasha are not that photographer friendly . They somehow do not understand the co relation between photography and distance and angles and also light even after instructing them . Here , I was quite lucky to make this image with the right light , perch and BG :) .

Cheers,
Rakesh

[Dave Leroy]

It certainly turned out nice and sharp. Lovely bg. and good perch to get the bird nicely isolated.

[Don Lacy]

Beautiful light and colors and a Nice OOF BG to show him off against.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Great IQ and exposure, Rakesh. enjoying all the details. not sure what you have on top, but if it is nice, I'd place the bird lower in the frame.

[dankearl]

Nice and sharp and well exposed.
Agree about moving it down a bit.

[Arthur Morris]

NIK Tonal Contrast and some branch work. Would have left more room in front for the repost had I not made a mess of the urc....

[RakeshDhareshwar]

This is around 85% of the frame . The original does have some part in front of the bird , but is a bit cluttered . Had not done anything except crop and sharpen . The NIK Tonal Contrast does add some boost here .

[Frank Schauf]

Excellent shot with very nice soft background.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful image Rakesh - gorgeous quality, great detail.

[arash_hazeghi]

great pose and nice details, good BG, the smaller branch in the orig was distracting, Artie's repost fixes it

[jim winters]

awesome