Pied Kingfisher - ISO3200

[Morkel Erasmus]

Had a great fun weekend with Mark Dumbleton and Hendri Venter shooting Malachite and Pied Kingfishers from a small boat in the South African lowveld region. I also had the chance to take the Canon EOS 7D for a spin and was quite impressed with its ability to track focus of these fast movers, often against high-contrast backgrounds. We had good light yesterday but this morning the overcast conditions proved to be a thorough test for the high-ISO capabilities of this camera as we had to ensure shutter speeds of 2500-3200 in order to freeze these blitzes.

This image was taken on one of the exits. The PK's were baited with small bream which were caught in the outlet of this dam.

All comments welcome...

Techs:
Canon 7D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 100mm
f5.6 @ 1/1600 SS @ ISO-3200
Exposure Compensation +1.0
Shot on Shutter Priority mode
Applied a slight warming filter during processing
2 rounds of noise reduction applied to the BG

[Doug Brown]

I like the explosion of water droplets. Noise looks well controlled after PP. Your timing was excellent. Do wish for a bit more detail in the bird, but overall pretty nice.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Awesome , awesome timing Morkel. They are a challenge at anytime but to get this is just fabulous. Congratulations !!!!!

[Austin Thomas]

Very well caught Morkel. Must be using a Canon that helped you in this case !!!!!

Great action and well planned.

Excellent.

Cheers

Austin

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the comments guys...

Austin you should have seen the results that Mark got on ISO-4000 with his D3 :eek::D

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Morkel, I like the splash but I have to say the bird isn't sharp enough in my book :(

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Arash...I've got much better shots in good light, was just curious to see what I can pull from a high-ISO shot in shoddy weather, and to see what others think :)