This is my first posting here, I am new to bird photography with only half year of expirience.Here is a image from last week, a male Common Kingfisher at the local pond.C&C are welcome :)
This is a gorgeous bird! The colors and tonalities are very nice here. It always helps to give information about things like ISO, aperture and shutter speed, and your processing.
Light colored reeds can be a problem for a background but you handled them well here, as they aren't blown out. (It looks like the light was soft.)
The amount of vegetation behind the head isn't ideal, but you probably didn't have much choice. If you had been able to get lower you might have been able to get the head above most of it. Or if this is a favorite perch, maybe it would be possible to push most of it out of the way with a long stick while he's away.
Looking forward to more of your images! You're off to an excellent start! Don't forget to comment on others' as well. That's an excellent learning tool as well, and fosters a community of like-minded folks.
I am from Bulgaria (East Europe).Thank you for the comment and critique.This image was shot at f/6,3, 1/1250, ISO 1800.Partly cloudy weather.Post include some 50% crop, a bit of denoise on background and little sharpening on the bird, plus a bit of vibrance and saturation on orange and blue tones.
Image was shot from around 5m, tripod plus camo net for cover.The perch is actually one of many there, and each time the kingfisher lands on different perch, so its kinda tricky to guess where its going to land.They are many better perches with clean creamy backgrounds around, but it ignores most of them:)
Beautiful subject and and neat grass stem perch. Colors look good, exposure spot on. Diane has touched on a main element here, and that is the background. From your comments about other "creamier" BGs you seem to know about it. If this is a favorite perch then physically cleaning up the BG while the subject is away is something I would most certainly do (if easily accessible, and not ruining a vital part of the area such as another species' favorite hiding spot or such).
Another thing that makes a photograph have more connection with the viewer is waiting for a better head angle. Here it's not too bad as the subject appears to be looking out and scanning the water, but generally it is best to have the bill at least parallel to the sensor, and even better a couple of degrees towards you. Here is an excellent (albeit lenghty) thread in regards to head angle:
thanks for sharing these special bird with sharp focus. Like others mentioned, BG is a challenge and I am learning to move around slightly, when possible, and study with binos the situation before hand, when possible. Sometimes I just accept BG as part of habitat, easy to do with this beautiful bird.
Common Kingfisher
