Pied Kingfisher

[Morkel Erasmus]

I was able to capture this guy landing on a dead tree stump on the edge of the Chobe river between Botswana and Namibia on a safari I led recently. The 6-seater specialised photographic boat we use with swivel chairs and built-in maneuverable gimbal heads allows us to get really close to anything from little birds to big elephants, and this is a full frame capture (well, 95% of full frame at least!).


As you can see here, this bird had just caught a guppy from the river.


Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
1.4x teleconverter
f8.0 | 1/3200 SS | ISO-1100

[gail bisson]

Great capture Morkel.
Were you prefocused on the perch?
Gail

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Gail. Yes, I saw the dive out of the corner of my eye (we were watching 2 others right in front of the boat, to the left of this perch.
I quickly swung around, focused on the perch (f8 was dialed in already) and fired off 3 frames as it came in to land.

[Doug Brown]

Quick thinking to focus on the perch and wait for the bird to arrive. I like the fish and the extended feet. I do think you could go brighter, and I wish there wasn't quite as much overlap between the far wing and the head.

[Daniel Cadieux]

How cool, quite the intimate KF landing image if there ever was one! Great thinking and reflexes here Morkel. I do wish there was a tad more room at left, but great job overall.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Great timing Morkel!
Nice KF, light and landing pose. The tiny fish is a bonus.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Great one, Morkel! I like how the highest sharpness in the facial area draws the eye to the face & the catch. A little more light on the side of the face would have been great, but unfortunately we don't get to pose these creatures first before the snap...

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks guys.

Daniel - there's a little more space LHS but there's an OOF stump that runs top to bottom there, so I cropped it out

[Neil Burton]

Everything is in it's place (even that dust spot under his tail right ;) ) I envy this as I never got a decent KF shot in Africa. Stonking shot.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Well caught Morkel sounds like one heck of a good boat with facilities like that! The image is sharp and I like the composition but it looks a little dark I would try exposure and or brightness to bolster presentation a little bit.

[JohanMocke]

Mooi!

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[Karl Egressy]

Nicely done, Morkel. It is not an easy situation, capturing a landing bird, that is.

[Satish Ranadive]

Spectacular landing pose after fruitful dive of king fisher, you have captured.I like the fish in his beak.

Regards,
Satish.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks folks - will play with the exposure some...