Squabbling siblings- Pied Kingfishers

[gail bisson]

canon 1D MKIV
F 500mm
ISO 400
f 6.3
SS 1/1600
Taken at 9:14AM in Botswana.
The whites are bright and blown out on the nape of neck of left bird but I felt the action still made for a cool shot.
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

Strong interaction, typical sibs! I would keep this one too!

The strong overhead lighting did cause challenges with the shadows. If not already done, I might either trying very lightly dodging the cheek,eye area of the right hand bird, or some very light detail extractor work there.

The fanned tail of the left hand bird is cool.

Look forward to more from your trip!

Cheers

Randy

[dankearl]

Excellent getting both sharp as can be and really nice interaction.
The light doesn't bother me except maybe a bit brighter on the right birds eye.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Very cool interaction, nice composition as well.

[Nick Palmieri]

Nice interaction. Wish i could see a little more light in the face/eye of the bird on the right.

[gail bisson]

Thanks all for the thoughtful comments.
I did dodge the eye and use detail extractor on the eye . Unfortunately, his head is tilted in such a way that the eye is shadowed. Fill flash would have been ideal and a faster SS but I didn't even bring my flash to Africa to keep the weight down.
I will have another go at the RAW but I think this is as good as it gets!
Gail

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, good to see Pied's from a different location. Typical woman moaning ( pied on the right is a female ) Her beak seems to have gone in quite deep, which has resulted in an agitated reaction from the Pied on the left. I like that the BG is separated from the action, and whites not bad as presented.

[Raymond Lee]

Great capture Gail! Nice sharp details and behaviour! I would try to tone down the whites a little bit, especially the bird on the left. As for the right bird, you might need to lift the shadow a bit on the eye and cheek. Very minor: if possible, I would work on the background on the left frame (next to the wing tip), it seems to disrupt the smooth pattern from the rest of the background.

[Satish Ranadive]

Gail:
Excellent interaction of siblings captured.Very nice composition.Nice perch to play for them.
Love the poses and wing positions.
BTW image looks absolutely superb in monochrome also.Just tried.

Regards,
Satish.

[Karl Egressy]

It is a cool interaction shot indeed, Gail. As I stated before, the action portraid always overrideds the minor flaws IMO.

[Grace Scalzo]

A fun behavior/action image. I think you did about as well as possible given the light. We are so picky, hard to learn to look past some flaws to see the strengths, which in this case are plenty!

[gail bisson]

I had another go at the shadowed eye. I dodged some more and applied 25% Detail Extractor to the eye. I think it looks a lot better!

[PhilCook]

Great interaction in this one, thinking maybe I prefer the original without the extra dodging on the eye, seems to look a little more lifeless now......whichever....a great shot Gail

[Robert Holguin]

Excellent action shot!!!
I really like the action captured and in my opinon the action over does the lighting flaws.
Well done.

[David Salem]

Gail, I too think the re-post looks better. The interaction between the siblings is cool and the scene is pleasing to the eye. Nice detail and BG. Might have cloned the brown to green in the BG. Nice work.