African Darter late afternoon

[Chris van Rooyen]

I captured this image of an African Darter at a recent workshop of mine. The light was too good to be true, creating a perfect background. As usual, the high ISO performance of the MK III was impressive.

Camera Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Date/Time: 2008:05:17 16:46:20
Shutter speed: 1/1250 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: +1/3
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 1000
Focal length: 700mm

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Lovely flight pose and composition and the lighting is gorgeous Chris. Good detail in the blacks and I really like the wing position and BG.

[Maxis Gamez]

Gorgeous light and pose. Nothing else to say!

[Dave Phillips]

beautiful in that glow Chris....would not look the same without that golden bg

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great light, details, wing position and BG. Is the white horizontal line underneath the eye overexposed?

[Vincent Grafhorst]

Without the magnificent light and beautiful BG this would be a very solid flight shot, now it is plain art!

[Fabs Forns]

Impressive light and background. Any high ISO camera performs well in warm light, flat light is the culprit for noise to creep in.
Not sure about the highlight in the face...

[Robert Amoruso]

Fabs brought up a good point on the light vs. ISO. Noise is in the shadows but fortunately, the Mark III works well there.

The white is overexposed as far as I can tell. A bit of PS work on it to build up density would be helpful.

[Chris van Rooyen]

Thanks for the comments guys. Yes, noise is in the shadows that's why we expose for the shadows etc. The African Darter is a black bird, therefore I was thrilled (again) with the noise control on the MK III at ISO1000, this would not have been possible by any margin with my MK II - even in good light:). As far as overexposure on the white is concerned, maybe, maybe not, but I take note of the comments;).

[Kirk Benson]

Magical Chris, very well done in capturing this moment beautifully. I don't see the overexposure, but the others are more qualified to comment on that topic. Thanks for sharing this image.