Kookaburra #4

[Colin Driscoll]

Continuing my Kookaburra series. They have a nest and are feeding young. The nest is a cavity that they have dug into a large white ant nest up in a tree and fortunately I can get a reasonable angle on proceedings. What do you think about the big limb in the BG? I have smoothed it a bit, is it a problem or not? I can't cut it down with my chainsaw!

50D 100-400 @ 400 1/800 f7.1 -2/3 ev iso 400 430EXII

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Unless you can obtain a shooting angle where the background branch is not in the image, then this is all you can do. Of course, you can get all the photoshop tutorials in the world and spend ages behind the PC cleaning it up. For me personally, I believe it is fine as is. :) Would be good to see the bird coming out. You could set up a similar shot to mine here (click to view) using a tripod, remote release and a very fast shutter speed and catch them at the point of just about landing. Or maybe try handholding and panning to get the same shot. Well done mate. :)

[Daniel Cadieux]

I really love the texture of the tree, very nice. I'd rather see an image where the bird is coming out of the nest though. Yes, in an ideal world that BG tree would not be there but that would not keep me from photographing a nice nest location like this!:cool: Although I realize this is likely the best view of the nest hole, have you experimented with other angles (perhaps at different times of the day to account for light angle) to minimize that tree?

[Craig Brelsford]

Daniel's advice is excellent. That'd be the way I'd go about it. You've got an opportunity here for some memorable shots.

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated. Here's a wide shot of the site. The black blob in the centre is the white ants nest that the birds have excavated into. One of the adults is at the entrance. There are definitely no other angles available and being on a steepish hillside facing south east, morning light is all that I can use. I guess there are all sorts of angles of the bird to be had and the one I chose for my OP was of the bird feeding the young. Occasionally they go into the nest for some housework so I will eventually get one of them coming out. Just to add interest to the task, the place I stand is almost on top of a nest of very large bull-ants. About 2 cm long, gun metal blue, and from previous bitter experience I know they pack a very powerful sting.