Woodland Display

[Mark Dumbleton]

An adult Woodland Kingfisher displays to another adult swiftly approaching.

Location : Zimanga Private Nature Reserve, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa
Camera & Settings : Nikon D810 | Nikon 400 f/2.8 VR | ISO 1000 | f/4 | 1/4000sec

[Randy Stout]

Mark:

A dynamic pose, with lifted wings and open beak. Well exposed. Soft bg, and I rather like the band of light running from upper left corner towards birds head.

I could see a version with about 30% of the free space to the right of the bird cropped off, but just personal taste.

Cheers

Randy

[Karl Egressy]

Nice pose and detail. Is the lower mandible black or it just has shadow on it.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Thanks for the comments folks.

@ Randy - I agree with you on that crop idea. Will give it a whirl.
@ Karl - the lower mandible is black on the bird.

[Alan Murphy]

Great action. I see a strong vertical in this.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice wings open pose. The blues are particularly appealing. Sweet BG. The slightly raised foot is a neat detail...

[Diane Miller]

Gorgeous color, sharpness and action with a great perch and BG -- love it!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Depends on how big a crop it is, as Alan suggested the vertical option. That would work really well.
Great job on this.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Thanks for all the insight folks. I tried the vertical crop, but because this is almost FF I had no room to create a pleasing vertical, it came out a bit squarish for my taste.
But if I had more space to make the vertical crop I would definitely do so. Thanks for the recommendation Alan.