Malachite Kingfisher
I was busy focussing on birds much farther away as I felt a tap on my shoulder - my wife pointed me to this beautiful bird which took up a spot about 3 metres f...
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I was busy focussing on birds much farther away as I felt a tap on my shoulder - my wife pointed me to this beautiful bird which took up a spot about 3 metres from me! It sat there long enough to let me try different settings and both my cameras. I was stunned by its beauty and its willingness to be my model for a few awesome minutes.
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Jan, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
At the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, South Africa (Sasol Bird Hide).Time
Just before 7am.Lighting
It was a typical sunny South African morning, the light still soft as usual for that time of day.Equipment
I was using my Nikon D600 and Nikkor 300mm f/4 prime lens connected to a Nikon TC14 E II teleconverter, thus effectively at a focal length of 420mm. The camera resting on a bean bag which was situated at the viewer's opening of the bird hide. No flash.Inspiration
I was actually focusing on aquatic birds further away when I felt a tap on my shoulder. As I looked around my wife was pointing to this bird which perched on a branch about 4 meters away from us! I was so excited as I knew that at these long focal lengths, one gets extremely sharp shots against perfectly soft backgrounds. My lens was actually mounted on my Nikon D7100 at this stage (giving me further reach) but as I realized this bird was in no hurry to leave, I quietly swapped my D7100 for the D600 for the sake of better quality. It gave me enough time to take a few shots at various setting combo's before flying off - resulting in one of my best shots ever taken, if I might say so myself!Editing
Yes. I post-process all my shots because I view my RAW files as digital negatives which need retouching to accurately reflect what I have seen with the naked eye. I've added a touch of unsharp masking in photoshop after applying my standard set of adjustments in Lightroom: decrease highlights just a little, check the histogram edges for blown blacks and highlights, add a touch of vibrance, check the Lens Corrections / Enable Profile Corrections checkbox.In my camera bag
A Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens on a Nikon D600, the 300mm f/4 + TC14 E II on a Nikon D7100, a Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, a 14mm Nokinon f/2.8 lens, two backup camera batteries. If I have to do an indoor shoot, the D7100 and 300mm lens combo makes space for 2x Yongnuo YN586 + 1x YN685 speedlites, a 600Ws Strobe, a YN-622 wireless flash trigger kit, various diffusers (including a MagBounce) and MagMod Kit. The bag inside top 'lid' contains extra speedlite batteries, a head lamp, UV & CP-L filters, a cable shutter release, an IR shutter release, a lens cleaning pen, a wi-fi adapter and small, soft paint brush (for equipment cleaning). The side bag has a rain coat which saved my equipment at least once. I might carry my tablet with me in a laptop section of the camera bag for tethering purposes. This section always carries a flat folded 40x40cm softbox for use with a speedlite. Yes, I can do with a slightly bigger camera bag, LOL!Feedback
For shooting birds: get a sharp prime lens (300mm / 400mm) and use it with a 1,4x teleconverter ('extender' in Canon terms). If you're one of the lucky Nikon users who can afford the 300mm f22.8 VRII lens, you can use it with a 2x teleconverter (TC20 E III) without loosing visible quality! A quality crop sensor camera increases your reach by another 1,4x but is not of much use on gloomy days in which case you revert back to your full frame camera. Practice a lot of patience. The most interesting things tend to happen just after you've moved on from a spot where you've been waiting for hours! Use back button and continous focus, specially for flying birds! Most importantly: enjoy!
