Kingfishers (fill flash)

Martyarty

Martyarty

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Martin
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I visited the Kingfishers in the gloom and rain today. The only way to get a shot was with a little fill flash.

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5. Where do you point your lens when this happens....
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Thamks for looking.
Marty
​
 
All rubbish would delete the lot.......... Can you tell im not in the slightest bit jealous, all stunning mate and the fill flash has been well used (y)
 
Absolutely superb!!! Very sharp and really nice colours. Wonderful images.
 
Great captures as usual Martin, love the last shot. The last one does look the more natural of the set followed by #1 and #2. Even with flash I find the colours a little harsh especially the Blue on #3 and #4.
 
Someone suggested I try flash as my kingy haunt is always dark.....might try it now.Could mean they go forever but it seems yours got through the ordeal O.K.

u8myufo.......is this better......
Martyflash.jpg


Hope you don't mind the mod...
Keith (y)
 
u8myufo said:
Great captures as usual Martin, love the last shot. The last one does look the more natural of the set followed by #1 and #2. Even with flash I find the colours a little harsh especially the Blue on #3 and #4.
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Thanks Rich.
The flash does add saturation to the colours in the feathers. I think that the feathers reflect / refract the light more because the light source is from the front, a bit like the way you can get red eye when lighting from the front.

ringyneck said:
Someone suggested I try flash as my kingy haunt is always dark.....might try it now.Could mean they go forever but it seems yours got through the ordeal O.K.

Hope you don't mind the mod...
Keith (y)
Click to expand...

My Kingfishers did not mind the flash at all, so give it a try.

I prefer my original shot and crop thanks Keith.
I was exposing for the whites as I always do with kingies, you have blown the whites by lightening the image. The belly area is darker because the bird was very wet.
 
fantastic stuff! One point of note - don't you need a licence to photograph Kingfishers or something? I think it's to do with 'disturbing their natural habitat', & using flash may risk breaching those rules

not taking anything away from the photos, which really are great - & clearly the flash has 'made' the shots - but don't blame me if you end up in Guantanamo Bay. There are people there on lesser 'charges'..... :whistle:
 
My understanding (and I bloody well hope I'm not wrong) is that you only need a licence if you're photographing them at or near the nest where you may cause disturbance to them whilst they have eggs/dependent young. I think the wording in the law about it is something about intentionally and recklessly disturbing them whilst they're at or near the nest....
 
nom nom de plume said:
fantastic stuff! One point of note - don't you need a licence to photograph Kingfishers or something? I think it's to do with 'disturbing their natural habitat', & using flash may risk breaching those rules

not taking anything away from the photos, which really are great - & clearly the flash has 'made' the shots - but don't blame me if you end up in Guantanamo Bay. There are people there on lesser 'charges'..... :whistle:
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Well Will this one always crops up now and again :LOL: A reply I recieved from Natural England.

Dear Mr Venn,

Kingfishers are protected under schedule 1 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 and it is therefore an offence to intentionally or recklessly disturb them while they are nest building or are in, on or near a nest with eggs or young. Our guidance states that:

A photography licence is only needed if the photography is likely to cause disturbance to the birds at or near the nest or the dependent young. Disturbance has been defined as an activity that influences the behaviour of the birds. Where birds are nesting in a public place or in front of a permanent hide and are acclimatised to the presence of people that the act of taking pictures does not alter behaviour then a licence is not required. In such cases the onus is on the applicant to justify, if challenged, the fact that the birds were not disturbed.

Therefore, if you believe that no additional disturbance was caused by taking the photographs as you were a suitable distance away from the nest and the bird is used to the presence of people then you have not committed an offence.
 
Martyarty said:
Thanks Rich.
The flash does add saturation to the colours in the feathers. I think that the feathers reflect / refract the light more because the light source is from the front, a bit like the way you can get red eye when lighting from the front.



My Kingfishers did not mind the flash at all, so give it a try.

I prefer my original shot and crop thanks Keith.
I was exposing for the whites as I always do with kingies, you have blown the whites by lightening the image. The belly area is darker because the bird was very wet.
Click to expand...

Sorry Marty...I can't remember why I went for a crop (age thing) but all I did was Auto Color to try and loose the "harshness" as suggested by Rich.

I also TRY and expose to capture the whites ...to the detriment of speed on my camera...which ultimately effects the quality.I have only seem a very few kingies with the white details.

Keith (y)
 
They are absolutely stunning Martin - and that is not a word I use lightly here :clap::clap::clap:

Interesting regarding the law and somewhat of a relief as my brother and I were trying to photograph a pair nesting on the site where he and his wife keep their caravan.
The Kingfishers chose the most popular area for human visitors to site their nest and were complimented with a pair of Dippers nesting virtually below them with none taking a blind bit of notice of everything going on around them !

Er.............. the total lack of postings of Kingfishers shows the measure of both my brother and my success........... no worries there then Martin :D

John
 
ringyneck said:
Sorry Marty...I can't remember why I went for a crop (age thing) but all I did was Auto Color to try and loose the "harshness" as suggested by Rich.

Keith (y)
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Appologies not needed Kieth.

SLRUser said:
That 1st shot is superb, probably your best.
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Thanks, I like it as well.

Thomas Covenant said:
They are absolutely stunning Martin - and that is not a word I use lightly here :clap::clap::clap:

Interesting regarding the law and somewhat of a relief as my brother and I were trying to photograph a pair nesting on the site where he and his wife keep their caravan.
The Kingfishers chose the most popular area for human visitors to site their nest and were complimented with a pair of Dippers nesting virtually below them with none taking a blind bit of notice of everything going on around them !

Er.............. the total lack of postings of Kingfishers shows the measure of both my brother and my success........... no worries there then Martin :D

John
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Thanks john. Keep at it they will come.

Thanks all for your coments.;)
 
love them all, great colours! and they must have been really close for flash, what lens was u using?
 
What the heck.

1,2,3 and 4, the blues are way overcooked as are the oranges, in my opinion. Some look oversharpened,unnatural and over saturated.

Best of the lot, by a country mile is the last one, superb effort.
 
fracster said:
What the heck.

1,2,3 and 4, the blues are way overcooked as are the oranges, in my opinion. Some look oversharpened,unnatural and over saturated.

Best of the lot, by a country mile is the last one, superb effort.
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Thanks Fracster.

These shots are not much different from any others I have taken recently. I used the same processing on these as I do all my shots, the colours in these are as they where in camera and they look fine on my callibrated screen.

I think that the flash could have added a bit to the colour saturation on these shots and as such the jury is still out on whether I will use it again.

I am not wanting to get into a big debate over Kingfisher colours, but I took the time to look at some of the Kingfishers on your website and see no difference in colour to your shots. If anything some of your kingies are over cooked and blown IMO.
 
LOL. Look it's not so much what Frac says as the way he says it - bull in a china shop springs to mind. :D:

There's some great shots here Mart. They look quite a bit under-epxosed though, especially for fill flash shots. The under-exposure is making the blues decidedly overdone and it's the case with all the shots in this thread with the possible exception of the last one.

No-one in this thread is picking up on these points, or if they are they're not saying anything, and that sums up the whole malaise of the bird forum at the moment. If we can't discuss these issues without snarling at each other (or if they're no longer important on a photography forum) we might as well just all go and post on Flickr and collect the medals.

You don't have your edit box ticked or I'd happily do an edit. It doesn't mean you have to agree with it. :)
 
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Martyarty said:
Thanks Fracster.

These shots are not much different from any others I have taken recently. I used the same processing on these as I do all my shots, the colours in these are as they where in camera and they look fine on my callibrated screen.

I think that the flash could have added a bit to the colour saturation on these shots and as such the jury is still out on whether I will use it again.

I am not wanting to get into a big debate over Kingfisher colours, but I took the time to look at some of the Kingfishers on your website and see no difference in colour to your shots. If anything some of your kingies are over cooked and blown IMO.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, But you put your photos on here for critique, I rarely do for the reasons stated by Cedders above.

So i`ll retract my observations and opinions and just go with the flow.

Superb shots, all spot on perfect..........:)
 
u8myufo said:
Great captures as usual Martin, love the last shot. The last one does look the more natural of the set followed by #1 and #2. Even with flash I find the colours a little harsh especially the Blue on #3 and #4.
Click to expand...

CT said:
No-one in this thread is picking up on these points, or if they are they're not saying anything, and that sums up the whole malaise of the bird forum at the moment.
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:thinking: :shrug: ;)
 
CT said:
LOL. Look it's not so much what Frac says as the way he says it - bull in a china shop springs to mind. :D:

There's some great shots here Mart. They look quite a bit under-epxosed though, especially for fill flash shots. The under-exposure is making the blues decidedly overdone and it's the case with all the shots in this thread with the possible exception of the last one.

No-one in this thread is picking up on these points, or if they are they're not saying anything, and that sums up the whole malaise of the bird forum at the moment. If we can't discuss these issues without snarling at each other (or if they're no longer important on a photography forum) we might as well just all go and post on Flickr and collect the medals.

You don't have your edit box ticked or I'd happily do an edit. It doesn't mean you have to agree with it. :)
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Thanks for the advice CT. I am new to this fill flash photograph game and will probably not bother with it again. Its good to get constructive advice and I welcome it. I agree that this forum in general has become more of a picture show than a place where people actualy offer any advice.When I first joined about a year ago people would rip into each others pictures on a daily basis. (Where is Lea when you need him)

Bring back the help and advice some of us need it.

I have unticked the edit box so play away Ced.

fracster said:
Fair enough, But you put your photos on here for critique, I rarely do for the reasons stated by Cedders above.

So i`ll retract my observations and opinions and just go with the flow.

Superb shots, all spot on perfect..........:)
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Fracster your opinions are welcome, but it would be nice if you backed them up with a posible solution or tip on how to improve. Anyway thanks for the coments.

u8myufo said:
:thinking: :shrug: ;)
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I did pick up on you observations Rich so thanks.
 
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I cannot offer advice on using flash Martin. I have these birds within four feet of me on the beck, I have tried using flash and have never liked the end result. That is probably my lack if knowledge on using flash though. The beck can be very dark so i understand the difficulties you face at times, but i have to be honest by saying that these don't look right to me.

Look at Jeff harrisons website and see the results he gets with flash, very impressive.

For me, I would rather crank the iso and use whatever light there is. I'll post some shots when I get home.
 
Martyarty said:
Thanks for the advice CT. I am new to this fill flash photograph game and will probably not bother with it again. Its good to get constructive advice and I welcome it. I agree that this forum in general has become more of a picture show than a place where people actualy offer any advice.When I first joined about a year ago people would rip into each others pictures on a daily basis. (Where is Lea when you need him)

Bring back the help and advice some of us need it.

I have unticked the edit box so play away Ced.

.
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First of all Mart - top man for taking my comments in the spirit in which they were intended. (y)

OK - these are as good as I can get them from jpegs and they were a long way out of whack. Working from the original raw file would be better but I think the colours are more realistic if not quite bang on - particularly 2 and 3.


mart -edit by tonky8203, on Flickr


mart-edit3 by tonky8203, on Flickr


mart -edit2 by tonky8203, on Flickr


I'm not the biggest lover of flash for bird shots, preferring natural light, but there's nothing wrong with using it - the trick is to avoid that over-flashed unnatural look by balancing the flash with the natural ambient light. Looking at the edits though-it's all there -the bird seems well balanced with the background and the shots don't look over-flashed- quite natural in fact, so I'd say your fill flash has done you proud. Don't hesitate to use it if that spot is dark enough to make it necessary.

The problems seem to be in the processing Mart. I'm just guessing that you're dragging the levels down to try and show some detail in the white areas on the bird which is really the wrong thing to do - you'll struggle to show any detail in those white patches at the best of times as they're very bright and by the time you've finished, the rest of the bird is dark and looking under-exposed as well as the colours looking over-saturated.

You could of course get the levels right overall and then selectively try to reduce the contrast in those white areas, but even then you can end up with it looking unnatural - those brilliant white patches are a feature of the bird and not something I'd worry about too much - they're pretty unimportant compared to the rest of the bird. and you can't expose for the rest of the bird and those white patches.

Anyway, I hope it helps mate and you're a jammy git for having a spot where you can see these birds so regularly - good luck to you - I never tire of seeing Kingfisher shots so you can keep 'em coming for me.
 
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Thanks Ced for the above post. Its helped a lot. I must have had my sunglasses on the other night when I was going through these images.

I have edited the original raw files below. Auto white balance in Lightroom then into photoshop, an adjustment of levels on mid tones and whites, resized and the sharpened. WDYT
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Thanks Marty​
 
Bang on the ferkin' button Mart! :cool:
 
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Viewing on a Diddy iPhone screen, but those look a lot better to me.
 
CT said:
Bang in the ferkin' button Mart! :cool:
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Cheers.

I have just put internet explorer up next to these images in photoshop on the same screen, and guess what all the colours are more saturated in the IE shots. They are spot on in Safari.

Why the colour shift?
 
Martyarty said:
Cheers.

I have just put internet explorer up next to these images in photoshop on the same screen, and guess what all the colours are more saturated in the IE shots. They are spot on in Safari.

Why the colour shift?
Click to expand...

That's usually down to working in Adobe RGB rather than sRGB Mart, but I've just checked against Safari which I use exclusively these days and as you say they're identical. Strange one - It could be IE using a different colour space, but whenI was using IE up till a couple of months ago, I never had the problem. :thinking:
 
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