Sacred Kingfisher

[hotspur (Chris)]

Up early one morning,and captured this image of this lovely blue kingfisher,they nest in the ant mounds in the trees around our property.

They are some what migratory,arrive in September,leave in March.

Actually,the last day i usually see them is the 15th of March,and then they head North for the Winter.

This image taken with canon 70-200 F 2.8 at 1/100th of a second,F 2.8,145mm,iso 400, before 7 am.hand held.

Hope this is of interest.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Nice capture, lovely colours

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Beautiful bird, sharp focus. I really like the way you've isolated the bird and the background is blurred to highlight the subject. Only comment, and this is being really picky, would be that the depth of field is a touch too narrow so the beak is out of focus. Maybe close the aperture down to f/4 or thereabouts might just have caught the beak as well. But as I said, that's being really picky.

[astroron (Ron)]

Very Sharp Chris.
Well Done

[Liz]

Beautiful little Kingfisher Chris - well done

[hotspur (Chris)]

Thank you all for the feed back,especially Troy-well done mate,on spotting the beak was slightly out off focus-i was interested to see if anyone noticed that.

Indeed i did go to F4 and took some pictures,that came out very well too,The reason i started at F 2.8.was it was very early morning and wanted to see what this lens could do,i really have'nt used it much since
i bought it,its easily as good quality as the L 400 prime.

Now i wonder if there was another photographer standing next to me with the F 4 version of this lens,and we took the same pic,would there be much difference?if i had been using F 4 with the F2.8 lens?

given that the F2.8 version is 10mm wider,does it work(IQ) quicker than a F4 version?in this sort of circumstance?

Thank you Troy for your comment,so many times people post photos,and there is very little interlectual feed back,also with this photo posted,i did want to play with the shollow depth of field,and aim right at his eye.you can see reflection of post and me in it on cropped version.

So ,no Troy-not picky at all,i am so gl;ad you picked it up,well done!
go to top of the class!

[Steve_E]

Wow Chris, quite the beauty you captured here. You did a great job in this low light situation. It's very unusual to see photos of Kingfishers on the ground given their nervous disposition.

I have a bit of a Kingfisher obsession even though we only have one variety(Belted) here, not nearly as beautiful as the Australian, Asian and European varieties. I use a camo drape to get my close ups and many mornings the birds will arrive earlier than I'd like(I'm there before sunrise) making it necessary to shoot around f/4-5 at ISO 500. I always try to shoot at or around f/8 but as you know that's not always possible. I don't use flash so it's a matter of getting what can be had. They are amazing birds to observe with many different "looks" about them.

Thanks for sharing this, I really enjoyed it.

Steve

[Tallstock (Peter)]

Impressive shot Chris.
I find it very helpful when technical details are included. I am trying to come to grips with my new Canon and all the different settings.
Can you show us the F4 version please?
Peter

[StephenM (Stephen)]

Nice one Chris!

Cheers,
Stephen