Alert Pied Kingfisher

[Stu Bowie]

Ive been very busy at work, thus my lack of being around for a while. Hopefully I can catch up before I go on my summer holidays. When perched, these Pied Kingfishers are always alert of others flying in their 'space'. This pose shows that this Pied was aware of another Pied flying close by. Taken in the Pilanesberg National Park a while back. The BG is distant dry winter grassland.

Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon 400mm F/2.8 +1.4 TC = 560mm ( borrowed for this shoot )
1/1000
F/10
ISO 640

Hand held on top of wooden walkway.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Awesome image Stu! I know this place Beautiful detail and great exposure with super BG. Well done.

[gail bisson]

Picture perfect Stu! IQ, pose, light and perch are all topnotch.
Gail

[Marina Scarr]

This is one killer image, Stuart, and I really love that pose! Perfect perch and BG and glad I can see its tootsies.

[Karl Egressy]

Great image quality and excellent pose, Stuart.

[Jim Neiger]

Awesome image! Great bird, pose, details, and bg. Well done!

[Enrique Patino]

beautiful

[WillieHall]

Enjoy seeing kingfishers from all over the world, our Belted Kingfisher is so skittish, hard to get close. Perfectly captured, this one!

[Dvir Barkay]

really nice with the pose and all the techs look good.

[Moe Ali]

This image simply pops. Wow, a beauty.

In the spirit of learning, I do have a question. I have a bad habit of using lenses wide open because I'm always thinking of lens shake, high ISO, and freezing the action. I tend to carry that habit into static subjects.

You have your F-Stop set to 10, so I'm wondering why so high for this image? At the expense of some higher ISO, is this set so that you don't chance any part of the bird out of focus? Could you have gotten away with say f/8 or f/6.3 and maybe a lower ISO?

[Stu Bowie]

You have your F-Stop set to 10, so I'm wondering why so high for this image? At the expense of some higher ISO, is this set so that you don't chance any part of the bird out of focus? Could you have gotten away with say f/8 or f/6.3 and maybe a lower ISO?

Thanks Moe. The reason for using F/10 here, was that the KF was pretty close, and I was lucky to get away with all of the KF in the DOF. Longer lenses tend to reduce the DOF at close distances. Having a lower ISO would have given me less shutter speed, and these guys are always moving, looking to see what is around, so having a faster ss, you have less chance of motion blur. Hope that helps.

Thanks a stack to everyone else for the feedback and comments.

[christopher galeski]

its all been said Stuart,great shot,well done.

[keith mitchell]

Superb piece of work Stuart.

Cheers Keith.

[mohammad reza shahab]

great pose,BG and very good details.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Stu - Fantastic image with excellent detail, sharpness and bokeh. Well done!

TFS,
Rachel

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Wow, this is such a beauty! great head turn and love the nice details on feathers. I don´t know this specie but I would be tempted to add blacks to the blacks for more punch.

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely PK, Stu. Typical Mankwe BG and perch. Great job on the aperture choice. Only suggestion would be that it feels little tight in the frame and a looser crop may be worth exploring, if available.

[David Salem]

Wow Stuart!! This one rocks. Love it all. One of your best!!