Printable View
American Pygmy Kingfisher (Chloroceryle aenea). Image taken on a night boat ride on New Lagoon near Lamanai Lodge in Belize. Illuminated with a Canon 550 flash. Image taken with a Canon 30D and 400 DO at f8, 1/160, ISO 320 set manually. Image was cropped considerably.
A really good image considering the cropping factor. I have problems when I do this, probably I donīt know how to do it properly. I have a question for you: did you use a hide? I ask since this guys are extremely shy.
Nice catch with good details. The flash is also handled pretty fine, considering u might be using strong flash at nite.
I suppose the fella must be sleeping/resting. I've done night photography of birds before. In most cases, they are much more approachable at night when resting than they are during the day. I've come to 3-5m of a very skittish kingfisher at night and stay there for 10mins which will probably fly off at around 15m or more in the day.
Beautiful bird, great details and eye contact. It looks a bit overflashed, do you remember the flash settings? The crossed branches in the BG are a bit distracting.
Pretty darned good for a night flash image, esp. the BKGR. Was it totally dark when you made the image?
Thanks, all, for you suggestions and comments.
I was amazed at how "tame" the birds were at night. This pic was taken from a motor boat, which was far from quiet. As long as the boat didn't touch the tree or limb where the birds were perched, they did not move. Some were close enough to touch, but we obviously didn't.
As to flash settings, I'm not positive, but I think it was ETTL -2/3. The camera was set on manual.
It was very dark, but the guide had a big spotlight, which may have been illuminating the background.
I have several additional kingfisher pics from the same outting at http://www.pbase.com/dbolt/belize, but I liked this pic the best.
