Pied Kingfisher

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Taken at Mankwe hide in the Pilanesberg National Park.....some time ago.

1D MK III
600mm f/4
ss 1/2500
f/8
ISO 800

[Stu Bowie]

Well timed Gerrie. Its always good to capture a full forward wingspread on their take offs, and you certainly achieved that here. Lets try for next weekend.

[Tony Whitehead]

Great launch image, Gerrie. Nice and sharp and DOF at f8 gives good coverage of the bird. Might clone out the white speck above the rump and the spider web under the perch.

[Ofer Levy]

Looks sharp to me and great pose. Light wasn't great but you did your part.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the timing, pose, and beautiful BG. I'd lighten the darks a tad (I think some fill would have helped here), especially around the face.

[Arthur Morris]

Well, at least Dan was getting close:) The image is overall too dark and the BLACKs way too BLACK. I used Tim Grey Dodge and Burn to lighten the BLACKs, sharpened the face, ran Noise Reduction and Surface Blur to reduce the noise, and then pulled up the curve on the whole thing. All as described in detail in Digital Basics.

This is a wonderfully timed sharp action image. With a killer pose. But, it could have been optimized much better. If I (and Dan and Randy) are the only ones doing honest critiques it gets very lonely here :)

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Thanks guys. Love the rework Arthur.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. I should have mentioned that Digital Basics is a PDF sent via e-mail.

[Jamie Douglas]

This is such a sweet take off pose Gerrie and it has been optimized nicely in the repost.

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Thanks Jamie!