Malachite Kingfisher (ISO-3200)

[Morkel Erasmus]

Went through some of 2010's files tonight and discovered this one. Just to show what the correct exposure can provide you with on a 7D at high ISO.

This one was cropped to about only 30% of the original image. NR applied to BG, but not to the bird. This actually has a lot of detail at higher resolution.

Taken from a small boat, hence the angle. Light was at its last...

Techs:
Canon 7D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 340mm
f5.6 @ 1/2500 SS @ ISO-3200
I was on shutter priority as we were trying to capture these little rockets in diving motion.

[Alan Murphy]

Nice work here. The bird and fish are outstanding. Wish for a smaller perch.

[John Guastella]

Fantastic color and a very nice pose; very good detail considering the amount of the crop. I don't think the viewer needs to see so much of the perch, so if you cropped more at the bottom you would address the issue of perch size and focus more attention on the beautiful bird. If it were mine, I would crop out a lot of the perch - down to just below the dark portion.

John

[Bhushan Dalvi]

Morkel, I love the way you composed this one. HA is great. The fish facing the camera is a plus. A smaller perch would have made it even better.

[Robert Amoruso]

I agree on cropping more of the perch out Morkel. Great head-angle with fish and its head forward. I might try lightening the whole image some.

[Bill Holsten]

Great image. My favorite Kingfisher!

Bill

[Sid Garige]

Great job considering low light shooting conditions Morkel.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the light and colors but IQ has suffered from noise IMO as the fine feather details are lacking, a tighter crop will only degarde it more. You say the higher resolution has more detail so it might be the sharpening, but I am not sure, can you post a 100% crop? it would be interesting to see.

[Ken Watkins]

Morkel,

An interesting experiment, but I have to agree with Arash on "detail", also agree on cropping to remove some of the perch, probably all of the lighter area, if IQ allows.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the feedback, folks

Arash - there is some detail loss due to noise, yes. What I meant above was that I was surprised at how much was retained given the poor light and high ISO.

Here is a crop of just the bird from the TIFF, resized to fit forum specs, no PP applied (not even sharpening after resizing). You can see the noise on the BG here too.

My intent for very high ISO shots like this will always be to get them good enough for web presentation, or even smallish prints. Until I get a D3s or 1Dmk4 I will not consider printing or even selling images taken at these settings.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Morkel,

Thanks for posting the crop, I think you needed to be at least three times colser to get an image with acceptable IQ, even in the crop, the KF has no feather detail...IMHO a cropped image form 7D at this ISO is not going to pull it, even for web presentation. I prsonally prefer not to take photographs when conditions are not right, but that's just me :) TFS, any way.

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Difficult opportunity nicely captured. Biggest issue to me is the perch. JR

[Harshad Barve]

very well done
TFS