Pied Kingfisher

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Most Kingfishers hunt by hovering over the water body and then diving in to make their catch . Was lucky to get this beautiful Pied Kingfisher hovering over the Ramganga river in Jim Corbett National Park.

Camera : Canon 1D Mk III
Lens : Canon 600mm f4 IS
Aperture : f8
ISO : 640
Shutters : 1/400

Cheers,
Rakesh

[Richard Pittam]

What a superb action shot. I love the blurred wings, it adds to the drama here.

[Giulio Zanni]

Beautiful! Maybe I would tone dawn a bit the whites in the head.

Giulio

[Randy Stout]

Rakesh:

The slow shutter speed and induced wing blur really does give the sense of hovering.

The framing works for the action going on, his direction of gaze.

My only concern is getting clean separation of the bird from the background.

I might try some selective curves adjustments or localized luminosity layers to try and separate the bird a bit more. Because of the blurred wings, might be a bit of a challenge, but worth a look.

Cheers

Randy

[Matthew Studebaker]

yes - lots of drama here. I don't mind the blurred wings. Good head turn here. Nice background. My only nit would be I'm seeing a lot of noise in the background. I wonder if running noise reduction filter in photoshop would clean it up?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good action and pose. My only concern, as with the others, is the BG (noise and minor brightness/streaks distractions)

[James Salywoda]

Awesome shot Rakesh