Belted Kingfisher

We don't do very well for kingfishers in North America; essentially we have one species- the Belted Kingfisher. This is an image of a female created in the Sackville Waterfowl Park today. What we lose in species diversity, we make up by having a spectacular, large representative of the family. Kingfishers are very weary here and they have been a nemesis bird for me in a way. I was not close enough to this one either, but I was pleased that the image was sharp and so I could crop. I'm afraid the white neck band was blown some so I repaired (should have used -1/3 or -2/3 compensation?). I also removed a few branches from around the legs of the bird. Hope you like.

40D, 500mm f4, 1.4x tc = 700mm effective FL
capture date: Sunday, July 20, 2008 12:40:41 PM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/500
aperture: f6.3
exposure bias: +0.0
flash: ON - Beamer, ETTL, no compensation, FP synch

Wonderful COMP. Love the spray of leaves. All in all, too wishy-washy with levels and contrast...

John,
Great image of the Kingfisher. Can you bring the whites back a little and see if there is any detail.

Love the green BG.

Bill

Great pose and composition, Artie's repost makes it shine.

Wonderful, and unusual, pose. I doo think the repost makes it pop. I like the perch.

Great eye contact and the nice green leaves are a big plus.

I do like the additional pop in the repost.

Robert

Arthur´s version is very good. This image needed that sat. boost. Great subject.

very nice John., Artie did a nice job on the contrast., if you have more room on the bottom, I would suggest a vertical crop.

Thanks for all the good comments and to Artie for the improved repost. I knew I had some pure blacks and pure whites in the image so I didn't think about adjusting Levels or Curves for fear of making it worse. I also got caught up in the soft light in the image. I saw the bird back in the same place the next day so I might give it another try.