Female kingfisher

[Mike Poole]

I've been working on my own Kingy setup this year, but the recent rain here in 'sunny' Manchester has meant I can't get the angles I want at the moment. So today I used a friends setup as I just had to scratch that itch! This lovely lady gave me loads of full frame shots holding fish, but I liked this one, even if it meant I had to crop a bit more than I wanted to



Canon 1d3
300mm f4 IS
1/400th, f4, ISO 500
Cropped from horizontal

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Love the nice pose and sharp eye she gave you!
Nice and clean BG, nice in focus beak. I wish the perch was not broken and may by would have stop down to f/8 to try to get the feet more in focus. I know the 1D3 and you could have gone to ISO800 to gain enough shutter speed without sacrificing DOF. Just a thought.

[Diane Miller]

Gorgeous! If you don't have requirements for a certain aspect ratio, I think just a little more on the right (and possibly the bottom) could look nice. Wouldn't be hard to add canvas if there was something distracting that made you crop where you did.

[gail bisson]

What a lovely bird.
Exposure is excellent and I really like the droplets on the chest.
If this is a set-up, it is unfortunate that the branch is broken. I also see a bit of a magenta cast on the perch which is easily fixed with the color balance.
I really like the graduated "ombre" green BG.
I like your comp and can see other alternatives with more room top and right.
I hope you get to go back to the set-up and use a better perch if possible. You will get some amazing shots I am sure,
Gail

[Ian Wilson]

Looks very promising - I hope we see more.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely shot I would suggest lowering the brightness just a tiny bit to increase contrast and saturation ever so slightly.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I can see why you like this one, the pose makes the subject look "pensive". Beautiful BG with calming colours. Well exposed and sharp where it counts but I agree a bit more dof would not have hurt, and indeed if this is a setup then a better perch would nicely spruce up your future images of this lovely species.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice image, nice looking bird. Looking at your setting you could have got better DOF by changing the f stop from 4.0 5.6 or 7.1 as you had plenty speed to cut back on.
Maybe next time.

[Mike Poole]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions everyone - much appreciated.

Regarding the DOF - schoolboy error, must do better! Again, another mistake was the focus point used. She had been landing on the perch with fish and kept looking to the left, so I had an upper right point selected. She landed, I grabbed this, and she flew off again as I was changing it. I can always add a bit more canvas though.

This is a setup shot, and I can return no problem, so next time I'll try and get a nicer perch

Thanks again

[keith mitchell]

Mike it's good that you can go back and have another go, this is a great looking image, the times I have come back and thought if only I had done this or that, I would be well pleased with this.

Cheers Keith.