Coming out in style...

[Morkel Erasmus]

This has to be my favourite image from our trip this past weekend. We were shooting Pied and Malachite Kingfishers from a small boat on a farmland pond in the Lowveld region of South Africa.

The birds were baited with small bream captured from the same water system, which we threw stunned/immobilised and threw into the water in the spots we wanted them to dive. This was the first time I have photographed with bait, and it was quite interesting.

I was quite impressed at the performance of the Canon 7D in these trying circumstances.

All critiques of the image welcome...

Techs:
Canon 7D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 135mm
f5.0 @ 1/3200 SS @ ISO-2000
Exp -0.3
Handheld over the rim of the boat

[Alfred Forns]

... camera and lens .. great performers !!!

High impact and in your face image !! Images with water splashing can become cluttered but I like this one a lot, pose is just perfect and just perfect timing !! Would only tone down the neck area !! Noise wise looks good, would run Noiseware Professional over the image, will get rid of what you have and keep the sharpness !!! Big Congrats on this one !!!

[susanschermer]

Fantastic action. Love it, Morkel. Baiting looks like fun.

[Harshad Barve]

beautiful action shot
TFS

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Doesn't get much better than this. Outstanding action and sharp as a tac. Congratulations Morkel on a fine image !!!!

[Michael Cohen]

Great image. I might try to darken the wing edges and see if you can recover a bit of the detail on the neck. However, that's nitpicking. Such good action and wing position makes it a favorite.

Mike

[Troy Lim]

Morkel, even though it looks a bit busy, but because of the level of difficulty of this shot, I appreciate it even more. KF is not easy to get even when they are not that active, let alone when hunting for a fish. Full wings spread, sharpness, awesome.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks so much for the kind words everyone. I had toned down the neck but it seems I uploaded the wrong version. will fix it after work!

[Stu Bowie]

Hey mate, with these type of exit images, there will always be a lot of flying droplets. Well timed, and I like the angle of exit. The PK seems free of most of the droplets, and overall nice and sharp. Congrats Mork.

[Jay Tan]

Super impact image! The splashes adds drama and are good as long as they do not obscure the bird. Is this bird so used to baiting over long period of time that it will react readily to fish thrown in? Really wish to try this.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Stu & Jay...

Jay the farmer and his wife (the pond is on their farm) are also photographers and they go out on the boat and bait the kingfishers only about once a month so it's not a perpetual thing, but I must say the kingfishers pounced upon every fish we chucked in (until they were full of course).

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Great timing, action & exposure! Great one Morkel!:)

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Gerrie!!

[Arthur Morris]

Killer as above. I only wish that the tail was not raised. Were you able to recover everything in the neck when you converted the folder?

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Artie - I will have a look at the RAW file again but I'm pretty sure I clipped those whites :(

[Arthur Morris]

From what I can see you those whites look recoverable. Are you using ACR?

[Morkel Erasmus]

yep in LR 2.7
will have a second look when I get back from church this morning...

[Arthur Morris]

Good luck. I am betting that the whites are recoverable with proper technique. Let me know if you need help.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Maestro - whites are indeed not blown in that area...about 90-95% exposure...what would you do to recover?

I normally use the recovery slider in LR up to about 20 (don't like to push it past that, avoids artifacts), maybe even use highlights slider and tone down even further and then I will use the select highlights command in CS3 to create a layer of the highlights and do a multiplied blend back at about 30-40 opacity depending on the brightness.