Called in on the kingfisher site yesterday afternoon. I set up a little bit further back this time and shifted my angle so the back-drop would prove more beneficial.
The light was bright and overcast, ideal shooting conditions as controlling the white flashes on the bird is then a doddle. He cut me some nice poses but it was all fairly standard stuff.
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700mm f7.1 1/320 98% Full frame
And then the sun came out. It was half-five so still quite harsh but this brought into play my reasons for changing my angle. Now the background was cast in dark shadow, with the bird itself in full sun. I spot metered off the chest of the young kingfisher and, as the shot was going to be all about the bird, upped the aperture to f10 to bring as much of the bird in focus as possible. Really pleased with the results.
You'll see that all the shots are cropped a small amount. This was a syncing error in Lightroom that I only noticed after processing all the tiffs!
700mm f10 1/400 98% Full frame
700mm f10 1/400 98% Full frame
I've a second perch at the site which she's showing an interest in. It's a vertical one, again quite plain looking but this is no bad thing. I've noticed that the growing trend with kingfisher shots is to have the perch more and more ornate which I think, given that it's probably the most striking bird in the country, is a little overkill. So I'm keeping it simple...for now. No doubt I'll relent at some point and stick a mossy perch in the ground!
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