Half-collared Kingfisher

[Richard Flack]

I was super chuffed to finally get a photograph of this beautiful, half-collared kingfisher while staying at Umngazi River Bungalows on the east coast of South Africa.
Eileen and I embarked on an early morning boat ride and after a couple of hours of searching found this little guy fishing. The background is the river bank.

Canon 7d Mkii | 400mm f2.8 | ISO 400 | f4 | 1/250 sec | Exp -0.3 |

[Bill Dix]

Stunning capture of this little guy with his neon colors. The almost monochromatic bg really makes him pop. I might have been tempted to clone out the oof twigs on the right.

[Adhika Lie]

Very nice. The pose and head angle work really well here but I agree with Bill about the two branches on the right.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Rich, lovely pose here, and you have brought out the plumage detail so well. I really like how the blues pop against the grey of the river bank, and overall, the little guy is nice and sharp.

[John Whaley]

Wow, it is a beautiful image. The colorful bird really pops against the grey BG bokeh.

[Joe Subolefsky]

Really like this one great exposure. Another vote for taking out the couple branches on the right.

[Tim Foltz]

Richard, great colors that BG really adds to the pop, nice and sharp, good HA the one OOF branch in the middle right side
I would remove other than that, very nice.

-Tim

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image. Love the BG, colors, and composition.
If mine would remove the other two branches.

Regards,
Satish.

[harikamal]

I liked the pose, color and sharpness of the bird. Background color is pleasing but still bit over clumsy for my taste. I would also try removing the farthest OOF branch.

[Richard Flack]

Thanks for all the comments. Thought you may want to see a version with the branches removed... admittedly I am a bit of a purist :)

[David Salem]

Beauty Richard!! Love the pose and colors on this one. The repost gooks great. Well done and good to see you posting again.