Malachite Kingfishers

[John Deakin]

Hi all, to introduce myself, I've been a 'closet' member here for a short time, looking in awe at the fantastic images posted by you guys and waiting until I have something that comes half close to what I have seen on BPN. I am hoping to learn a lot from you all in terms of photography and in particular post processing as this is an area I need to take more seriously. I only use basic adjustments, haven't a clue about layers or masking etc. :(

I am originally from the UK, now 8 years living in South Africa and loving every minute. Recently switched from Canon to Nikon system and still getting used to the differences.

I am aware that you don't normally like frames etc, and I will in future leave just the image, this one has been taken from another site I am a member of, so please forgive me just this once ;).

Your help and comments are most welcome. I would love to be able to take out the intruding reed bottom left corner but with my current limited skills I would most likely mess up.

Original capture details :

D300
500VR + 1.4x extender
F/5.6
ISO 400
1/1250
Matrix Metering
Auto WB
Raw conversion in Lightroom
Approx 50%, originally there was only one and I was in portrait, then the second MK joined in and I didn;t want to miss the shot whilst altering orientation of the camera, so cropped top and bottom, width is as shot.

[Arthur Morris]

Weclome. Cool capture of the interaction. The image is over SATed, esp. the blues. The two branches overlapping the tails are problematic. Getting rid of the o-o-f one on the left (the more distracting of the two) would be easy with a Quick Mask as would lightening the eye of the bird on the right (using the same technique). Digital Basics will get you started and then it would be on to APTATS once you have mastered the basics. Cheers.

[Harold Davis]

hi john and welcome to BPN! nice first post. agree with artie on all accounts. nuff said. cant wait to see more!

[Kaushik Balakumar]

lovely interaction between the individuals. indeed a nice moment captured.
just one nit from me... the blue seems a bit toooo bluuuueeeee (bit over-saturated).

TFS.

[Geurt Bloem]

Morning John and it seems as if the new D3 works well! Sweet opportunity here but a tad over saturated for me as well. You covered the reeds yourself.

[David Steele]

Welcome John. Although I agree with the comments this is still one **** of a shot.

[Haim Ziv]

KF are my favorite birds. Great interaction and very beautiful done.

[John Deakin]

"Weclome. Cool capture of the interaction. The image is over SATed, esp. the blues. The two branches overlapping the tails are problematic. Getting rid of the o-o-f one on the left (the more distracting of the two) would be easy with a Quick Mask as would lightening the eye of the bird on the right (using the same technique). Digital Basics will get you started and then it would be on to APTATS once you have mastered the basics. Cheers."

Thanks very much for your warm welcome Arthur, your critique is taken on board and much appreciated. I will look at the saturation for sure. I guess I will have to invest in a decent monitor and get it calibrated, although I am known to like over saturation its now quite obvious that I am going too far over the top. The layers and quick mask techniques are something I know nothing about........ yet :) I will be doing something about that rather quickly now.

Thanks to all who commented, I can see this site is going to help me immensely.

Please forgive that I am not commenting as yet on others work, without the PP knowledge I have yet to learn, I feel I cannot add much other than "great shot" and that is not why I joined BPN.

I will be adding more images shortly........... hopefully they will get better all with the valuable input you guys and gals freely give, thanks again.

John

[Chris van Rooyen]

Hi John, welcome to this site, great image. I'm not sure that I agree on the over-saturated blues, I know the species well and their colours are really almost to vivid to be true. Looking forward to your future posts.

[John Deakin]

Hi Chris and thanks for the welcome.

I too find it quite amazing that some of these MK's can look so vivid when the light is strong, whilst others are more dull in colour. This particular day there were 7 flying up and down the channel between two of the Wilderness Lakes, all looked different in colour, some were youngsters. However, I am using an uncalibrated HP laptop to do my editing and cannot therefore see what others see on great quality calibrated screens at the moment so I guess I will have to go that route when funds allow. I always try to get the colour as real as I saw it through the viewfinder on the laptop and as you say, sometimes these beauties just look too vivid to be true, thanks again.

btw, if you would like to have a go, with your incredible PP skills, at doing the suggestions above regarding the reeds and eye work, I would be very happy to see the results :) and when are you coming to teach us Southern Capies 'How To' ? :) I can see I will need to get more skilled in this area of producing the high level of image quality for this great site.

Best regards

John