One more belted kingfisher. During my years of scouting her, I noticed that, first thing in the morning, she always flew to a certain area of the lake and perched for a bit. So, I found a dead limb that seemed like a nice perch, waded into the lake a little ways, and stuck it in the mud in that area. After a few days, she started landing on the new perch first thing in the morning. While that was a victory for me, she’d only land on it 30 minutes before sunset and then fly around the lake to her other favorite perches once the sun came up. Sometimes, she’d hunt from the perch, but sadly for me, she never ate a fish on it. In the end, then, I was only able to photograph her on it prior to sunrise, but it did allow me to get close to her without scaring her off. Still a great experience.
In post, I cropped a bit for comp., adjusted the highlights and shadows in curves/levels, resized, sharpened the bird, and reduced noise on the BG. All C&C welcome.
If you would like your image to be eligible for a feature on the NPN Instagram (@NaturePhotoNet), add the tag ‘ig’ and leave your Instagram username below.
Getting a kingfisher to sit for this is a nice opportunity. Lovely background, nice pose. I see a strong magenta cast to the plumage in the bird. Especially the head. Here’s a version that just used color balance to add green and blue to the midtowns of a selection of the bird. These colors feel more accurate for a kingfisher.
Thanks, @Keith_Bauer. I think that is an improvement. Should’ve run your color cast removal trick. Those pre-sunrise white balances can be all over the place.
Very nice, Lyle. I liked the original and I think the modified color balance helps a bit, though I tend toward the school that lets the light be what it is. Pre-sunrise has certainly gotten a lot better with the high iso available now.
The original here seems to have a little more life. Although the magenta cast is there, I don’t find it that objectionable. I might even lighten up the head half a stop. No problems with the saturation here.
These guys are so hard to get close to, so nice job; and the closeness really helped bring out some fine detail in the feathers. Nice pose and background.
So difficult to get close to and you’ve done well here Lyle. I like what @Keith_Bauer did to remove the color cast which is pretty strong in the original image. The background is very painterly looking and balances nicely with the colors of the bird. You got a great head turn and a good composition. You were handsomely paid for your efforts to create this setting even if you didn’t get a fish capture.
It’s not always that we get a set up to work, even partially. So congrats on getting this image. I like the muted background and light in this image. @Keith_Bauer’s edits seem to make the colors more neutral and the head looks a tad sharper than the original, which helps too. Hope she rewards you with a fishing image soon.
