The Eastern Spinebill is a member of the honey-eater family. They love to dive into the water and bounce right out, all in a few tenths of a second. They seem to delight in making as big a splash as possible and dive in repeatedly until thoroughly wet, then retreat to a safe branch for a long preening session. The bird in the image has just emerged from the water and is on the way up, sharing the airspace with a honey-bee which came to the pool for a drink. This is another capture in our garden using the high-speed multiple synchronized flash set-up described previously.
Canon 5DIII + 300 mm f/2.8L II + 1.4x III extender, three 600EX-RT flash units, RS-80N3 remote shutter release, 3532LS Gitzo tripod, Kirkphoto King Cobra gimbal.
Pre-set manual focus, manual camera settings, f/14, 1/200 sec, ISO 125, 1/8 flash power.
Processed in DPP4: adjust shad/h'lights (+1,-1), saturation (+1), luminance NR (0), chrominance NR (2), sharpness (3), crop, RAW-TIFF. PS Elements: select bird and bee, surface blur background to reduce file size, remove two flash h'lights from bird's eye, downsize, sharpen, TIFF-JPEG.
Eastern Spinebill and honey-bee at the pool
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