Flight of the Giant

[Stu Bowie]

Giant Kingfisher. I went to Pilanesberg Game reserve yesterday, and had a fun day shooting with other BPN members. Gerrie, Anton, and Gary Jones, who came up all the way from Durban. This is not as sharp as I wished for, as the BG couldnt provide enough light at the time for a good ss. However, I feel the BG does enhance this image with the colours. He did manage to fly right in front of another upright perch, which went across his right wing. It was worth removing it.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/1000
F/5.6
ISO 640

Exp Comp 0
Hand held

[Harshad Barve]

Stuartbhai
one fine image , lovely dive pose and sharp where it needs
TFS

[Joe Senzatimore]

Nice light and detail. Not sure if the perch adds anything to the image.

[Dave Barnes]

Hi Stu.
Did you blur any of the BG? (I think I see some vignetting)
I would also have liked a bit of a tighter crop.

[Arthur Morris]

Wicked dorsal view and a very sharp eye. Was this with Servo AF???

Did you blur the BKGR, especially the lower half? It looks quite funky below the bird :)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the topside view, sharpness and BG. I might have raised the ISO more. How did you blur the BG, it looks somewhat uneven.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a stack guys.

Artie, yes this was A1 servo, and I did blur the BG.
Axel, in my haste mentioning that I removed a branch from the right wing, I forgot to add that I extended the canvas at the bottom and copied some of the BG from the rest of the image. It was blurred as mentioned to Artie.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the info. Great job of holding focus. Poor job on the blurring as the BKGR especially the lower half which looks phony :) This one is worth another go. Better yet, when you have a minute, please post a JPEG that represents the original capture.

[Stu Bowie]

Here is the original.

[Arthur Morris]

Wow. The bird looked great for the huge crop. Were you using the middle sensor???

You did a great job getting rid of that stick. I much prefer the BKGR as is. Be right back.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a stack Artie. With these take off shots, I normally use one of the outer focussing points, to allow more space for the bird to fly into. They are pretty quick, and I usually get them further back towards the perch. Dont really like them at the bottom here, but I liked the BG in this.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. I don't think that there's a sensor down there!

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose and BG, nice light, do wish it was sharper.

[Arthur Morris]

I am confused Arash; on the original post the face and eye look perfectly sharp to me.

[arash_hazeghi]

I am confused Arash; on the original post the face and eye look perfectly sharp to me.

I think it is somewhat subjective, to my eyes it is a bit unsharp and lacking in fine detail likely due to crop or focus but I am too picky about IQ I can tell very subtle differences :)

Stuart has done the best he could do here.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for sharing your honest thoughts!

[Stu Bowie]

Thank you all for the great feedback. Much appreciated.

[denise ippolito]

Stuart, The image held up well for a large crop and you did a good job w/ the branch removal. Head and face do look sharp. Agree w/ smoothing out the bottom half of BG.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Stuart, I'd have never guessed the orig. Some incredible PP work on the bird and twig removal. Love this bird.

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Great PP work on removing the branch Stu! Sharp enough on the head to make it work.:)

[Jay Tan]

Very nice PS work there to remove the branch! Love the diving pose, blurred wings.

[Stu Bowie]

Kaustubh, Gerrie, Jay, thanks a stack for your comments. Much appreciated.

[denise ippolito]

What about me?:(

[Tony Whitehead]

Good job, Stuart. Good light and the BG colours are nice. I must confess, looking at the original, I probably wouldn't have processed this but you have shown that a decent result is possible. 1/1000 probably isn't enough to freeze the bird in this position - the wing blur is nice but I suspect that the motion in the head and body is visible which is what Arash has noticed. I have an image from the day I was there of a GK in the same part of it's trajectory also at 1/1000 and it just isn't quite crisp due to motion. It's probably worth pushing ISO and dealing with noise rather than motion blur.

[Stu Bowie]

Denise, Tony, thank you both so much for your feedback.

Denise, apologies once again for missing you out the last time around.