Overcast Pied Kingfisher

[Stu Bowie]

Although taken back in May, its very disappointing to travel to my favourite location and find it overcast. What does one do - shoot everything that comes into sight. I could have posted this as a B&W due to the lack of colour. This male Pied Kingfisher was busy bashing his catch ready for swallowing. There was not much I could do about getting the end of the perch in the DOF range being fairly close. Taken from a hide in the Pilanesberg nature reserve.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 340mm
1/1250
F/5.6
ISO 800

Manual Exposure
Hand held

[gail bisson]

Hi Stu,
We are going to have to start calling you "the Pied Piper ( Photog) of Joburg". I really like this one . the IQ is superb and the fish is the right side up and facing the viewer so that is a big plus! I like the swirled bark. But what makes this picture is the bit of red tongue. One of my favorites of your pied KF,
Gail

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

I like it for the same reasons as Gail. I would certainly have tried fill flash to help compensate for the dull day.

You might be able to bring up the catchlight a bit to give it a bit more spark.

I feel your pain about overcast. Our weather has been dreary for the past week except for one day, so when I have time to shoot, I don't have a lot of opportunities!

Well, time to process old images I guess!

Cheers

Randy

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

I took a minute to try and tweak your image a bit.

Mild raising of the midtones in curves
Dodged the catchlight on eye ( overdid it a bit to get idea across. It does make it look like he is really concentrating on the fish, because you can see the pupil a bit)
Tonal contrast adjustment on bird only with Nik Color Efex tonal contrast filter.

You certainly can do better on the raw, but wanted to see if I could brighten the day a bit!

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Randy, thanks a stack for your repost. It does look a lot lighter and better, so thanks for showing me in the right direction for the next one from this day's shoot.

Cheers.

[v.p.nurdeen]

Hi Stuart,
Sharp image great perch and the fish facing the camera right side up makes this image.
TFS
VPN

[Joe Senzatimore]

Sweet image. Would LOVE to see this in B&W!!!!!!! A keeper either way , for sure.

[denise ippolito]

Stuart, I love this capture. Randy did a great job bringing up the face, mouth and fish. I might keep the whites in the OP if it were mine. Nice sharpness and love the tiny fish!

[dankearl]

Great catch on both the Kingfishers part and yours Stuart.
A lot of detail in the little fish!

[Mital Patel]

Stu .. take my bow for this amazing capture with that really really hard background to handle.

[Stu Bowie]

Thank you all for the kind words.

[Geir Jensen]

WOW for an image, wish it was mine. Very well done

[Robert Holguin]

Hello Stuart. Wonderful image. Love the pose, exposed very well, love the position of the fish and the fact that we can see part of its eye. Great perch and background.
Well done.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent Stu, like the big fish