Pied Kingfisher

[Chris Kotze]

Canon 40D Lens 100-400 L 5.2
SS 1/200 Sec
ISO 400
Manual Flash
Took this in the Kruger National Park

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the eye contact, soft light and BG. I might sharpen the shadows a bit less to avoid the noise in those areas.

[Randy Stout]

Chris:

Your lighting sure helped with this high contrast bird! Nice HA, sharpness and exposure. Good flash work, anymore would have looked overflashed.

Cheers

Randy

[Aidan Briggs]

Ditto the above comments. Also for me the grasses in the BG are very distracting. Maybe you could have gotten lower for a more distant BG?

[Morkel Erasmus]

nice one Chris! ditto noisy areas, might seem less obvious if you give it more space all round?

[Stu Bowie]

You have exposed the colours nicely in this Chris, and I like the angled look towards you. Great flashwork, and I would maybe get rid of the vertical OOF piece of grass in front of him.

[Chris Kotze]

I have removed the OOF grass. Does this work or should one leave it as the original image ?

[Randy Stout]

Chris:

I often am guilty of smoothing out backgrounds too much, but I would prefer the original just minus the two largest grasses that intersect the tail. I prefer the sense of habitat/place the rest of it gives. I feel that the remainder of the grass is OOF enough, and of low enough contrast, that it doesn't bother me.

Randy

[Chris Kotze]

Thanks for your input Randy