Grey-headed Kingfisher with Gecko - Uganda

[Ronan Donovan]

First time post folks, hope it goes well!

Equipment: Canon EOS 7D and Canon 800mm f/5.6L.
ISO 800, Center-weighted metering +2 stops in Aperture priority.
1/30 sec @ f/5.6.

I spotted this adult grey-headed kingfisher flying with the tropical house gecko in its beak so I figured it was headed for a nest. I pinned down where it had to be; in the cliff along the lake.

This photo was shot after sunset (hence the slow shutter speed) with clouds as the background. This was the only solid background I could find, the rest we cutterd with leaves or sticks. I have another image with the bird’s whole body facing the camera that yields a better view of the gecko’s face, but you lose all the blue in the kingfisher, so I chose this one for the blue. The white background and the after sunset light diffuses the image a bit for me and I’d really liked have captured this scene against a darker background. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your comments and critique.

-Ronan Donovan

[Melissa Groo]

Welcome, Ronan! What a fantastic first post!! Just gorgeous. I can't think of much to improve this beauty except for: Image may not be as crisp as it could due to slow SS. And I may be seeing a little noise in the blues (but maybe it's just my monitor). I don't really mind the BG being white, am curious to see what others think. Great composition, stunning colors, great head angle. Again, excellent first post!

[Ronan Donovan]

Melissa, thank you for the support and feedback. I agree, not as sharp as I'd like it to be at 1/30. I still need to improve my slow shutter speeds at 800mm. Any suggestions? I run a Mongoose 3.5b on a Gitzo GT3541XLS. I know people can go down to 1/15 and perhaps Morris can go lower...
Thanks again.

[Ofer Levy]

I love this! You did very well with what you had. BG is the only weak part of this otherwise excellent image.

[Melissa Groo]

Ronan, pushing the ISO is the only thing I can think of for that situation. And I know that gets tricky with the 7D. (I have one, and I don't even like hte noise at 800!) I guess its just hard with such low light. But there may be things specific to the 800mm, and you might want to consider starting a thread in the General Photography forum to get feedback on this from other 800mm owners.
Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

[Doug Brown]

Welcome Ronan! This is an excellent first image post. Cool prey, great sharpness, and a good pose. A green BG would have been icing on the cake. I'm not a big fan of the thick black border. Look forward to seeing many more of your images.

[Ronan Donovan]

Thanks for the suggestions Melissa, I'll open a thread and get some feedback on the 800mm at slow shutter speeds. I do long for the days when Canon DSLRs can work at 6000 ISO (like the Nikon D3) with little noise. It will come. Maybe an 800mm zoom that isn't so big too...
Thanks again.

Ronan, pushing the ISO is the only thing I can think of for that situation. And I know that gets tricky with the 7D. (I have one, and I don't even like hte noise at 800!) I guess its just hard with such low light. But there may be things specific to the 800mm, and you might want to consider starting a thread in the General Photography forum to get feedback on this from other 800mm owners.
Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

[Ronan Donovan]

Thanks for the feedback Doug. I agree, a green background would have been sweet with this one. I added the black border to try and sperate the image from the rest of the post-page. What would you suggest otherwise?
Thanks again.

Welcome Ronan! This is an excellent first image post. Cool prey, great sharpness, and a good pose. A green BG would have been icing on the cake. I'm not a big fan of the thick black border. Look forward to seeing many more of your images.

[Tony Whitehead]

Welcome, Ronan. great opening post. I don't mind the white BG and think the black border is a good idea with this type of image but it would be better to keep it a lot finer. Only suggestion is to knock back the saturation on reds a tad as they are clipping - can be a problem with conversion to sRGB for web.

[Ronan Donovan]

A background a little more like this for the gecko shot would have been great!

Alas, it wasn't until the last morning I was there, with some great morning light, that I captured this image. Not as cool of a prey item, but certainly better on the background and sharpness, but lacks the blues on the wing.
Why do we have to keep a schedule! I could have stayed at this camping area for months with all the birds around. Unreal.
Thanks again for the comments.

Welcome Ronan! This is an excellent first image post. Cool prey, great sharpness, and a good pose. A green BG would have been icing on the cake. I'm not a big fan of the thick black border. Look forward to seeing many more of your images.