Pied Kingfisher

[Nico Steenberg]

Photographed @ Mankwe hide Pilanesberg

Camera Canon EOS 450D
Lens EF 400mm f/5.6L USM

Shooting Date/Time 8/16/2010 10:44

Tv 1/1250Sec.
Av F7.1
ISO Speed 400
Metering Mode Matrix

Image Quality RAW Processed in CS4

[Kurt Bowman]

Nice flight shot of a very fast subject Nico. Looks nice and sharp. I ;ike the bit of wing blur showing motion. Looks like some of the whites are a tad on the bright side (mostly above the eye and tail) but don't look clipped. Still good job on a tough exposure.

[Doug Brown]

Sweet pose with great eye contact. Like the wing blur but do wish that you had gone with a faster shutter speed to sharpen things up a bit more. On my monitor the whites look fine. I might remove the small catchlight at the bottom of the eye.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Agree with Doug. Excellent shot...liked the subject placement and angle. Terrific AF job.

If mine, I'd try some curves work to brighten the BG a bit.

[Don Lacy]

Nice flight image of a very shy and fast subject the whites look good on my monitor only suggestion would be to lighten up the eye.

[Ofer Levy]

AN impressive shot indeed!

[Dave Leroy]

A striking pose with the full wing spread like that.

Nice and sharp where it needs to be.

Well done

Dave

[Arthur Morris]

Whites look fine here too. Love the image design and wing position. It seems that the blur in the near wing is from movement rather than lack of d-o-f. Any opinions on that? I have some hawk friends who feel that no shutter speed can be too fast for flight....

[arash_hazeghi]

I like everything about this, the pose is nice and dynamic just wish for less motion blur in the wings.

[James Salywoda]

Awesome!!! Beautiful angle of capture and I like the motion in the wings sweet shot Nico.

[Nico Steenberg]

Thanks guys

These guys are fast and the wing movement even faster, have seen a lot in flight shots of them on a local forum and you will hardly seen the wings frozen. Artie IMO the DOF was ok and the shutter speed was the result of the blurred wing. The blurred wing is giving it a sense of movement ? Thanks again

[Randy Stout]

Nico:

Very impressive shot. All the techs have been covered, and yes I would prefer slightly sharper wings, but still very effective as is.

I would push the ISO a bit and try to get 1/2000s or higher for a little rocket like this!

Cheers

Randy

[Dumay de Boulle]

Great image Nico...One of the best take offs of this species I have seen

[Nico Steenberg]

Thanks Randy and Dumay for the great comments

[Ken Roberts]

Beautiful shot, very difficult capture... Well done!

[Nico Steenberg]

Thanks KEN for the great comment