Photographing diving kingfishers advice needed

Martin England

Martin England

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Advice needed
I've got a unrepeatable opportunity this weekend photographing diving kingfishers from a hide.

I will be using a Nikon D810 with a Nikon 200-500mm lens.

My question is, what is the best focus settings and iso setting to freeze the bird?

I'm hoping I can pre focus but my thinking is this won't be possible and as I mainly do landscapes and macro I'm worried I might miss the shots.

Any advice would be very much appreciated
 
They move very quickly!
A fast shutter speed of say 1/2000 or higher would enable you to stop it in flight but you may still have some wing-tip blur and it all depends on your available light, the D810 can handle low-light fairly well so don't be afraid to up the ISO if you need to ... or set shutter speed and aperture in Manual and choose Auto-ISO.
Aperture will dictate how much depth of field you have and the more you have the more likely you will achieve focus (with caveats) so something like f8 would be good but of course 1/2000 at f8 might not be possible if the light is poor.
I always like Group Area-AF which generally gives good focus.

If you can pre-focus great, but don't bank on that and be prepared for a card-full of missed shots with, if you are fortunate, one or two good ones. :)
 
It always amazes me seeing those full frame images of diving kingfishers. They are so fast.
All I can add is good luck
 
gramps said:
They move very quickly!
A fast shutter speed of say 1/2000 or higher would enable you to stop it in flight but you may still have some wing-tip blur and it all depends on your available light, the D810 can handle low-light fairly well so don't be afraid to up the ISO if you need to ... or set shutter speed and aperture in Manual and choose Auto-ISO.
Aperture will dictate how much depth of field you have and the more you have the more likely you will achieve focus (with caveats) so something like f8 would be good but of course 1/2000 at f8 might not be possible if the light is poor.
I always like Group Area-AF which generally gives good focus.

If you can pre-focus great, but don't bank on that and be prepared for a card-full of missed shots with, if you are fortunate, one or two good ones. :)
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Much appreciated I just hope I have enough CF cards
 
I'd try and see how far you can push the shutter speed once you have dialled in a low ISO and reasonable depth of field. When I tried a few years ago, I was finding it hard to get any sort of sensible shutter speed without the ISO being over 8000 due to the light and that was on 2.8. This was due to the kingfishers typically only visiting the perch outside the hide at 7am in the morning when light was still not great. Throughout the day they always seemed to be on the far side of the lake, some distance from any hides.
 
Giles2373 said:
I'd try and see how far you can push the shutter speed once you have dialled in a low ISO and reasonable depth of field. When I tried a few years ago, I was finding it hard to get any sort of sensible shutter speed without the ISO being over 8000 due to the light and that was on 2.8. This was due to the kingfishers typically only visiting the perch outside the hide at 7am in the morning when light was still not great. Throughout the day they always seemed to be on the far side of the lake, some distance from any hides.
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I'm in the hide all day and apperently afternoon light will be best time, hoping weather is kind to me.

Any thoughts on how much a D810 iso can be pushed before a noticeable degrade in picture quality?
 
Also - whats the technique? Do the birds use the same perch to fish from, and dive into roughly the same spot. i.e. do you prefocus on a spot or try to track?
 
If it's an 'open area' hide there will be little certainty as to where the birds will dive, or even perch, so it will be very challenging.
If however it's a hide using caught fish swimming in a 'tank' below the Kingfishers perch then there will be some degree of certainty ... but there is very little time between the bird leaving the perch, catching the fish and returning to kill and swallow it.
Where I have been this week the bird was landing and fishing anywhere from three nearby sticks to reeds, fence posts and barbed wire across the other side of the pond :)
 
Ah I hadn't considered the use of a tank with fish to restrict the area of the dive - thats clever
 
JustMe said:
I'm in the hide all day and apperently afternoon light will be best time, hoping weather is kind to me.

Any thoughts on how much a D810 iso can be pushed before a noticeable degrade in picture quality?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I use Canon so no idea. But as always a grainy image of a sharply photographed bird will be preferable to a cleaner image of an out of focus/blurred bird. Id suggest a few tests before you go and see what ISO you would be happy with.
 
Fx nikon is brilliant ! I've edited usable shots at 5000 iso on a d600 so you should be fine
 
Byker28i said:
Ah I hadn't considered the use of a tank with fish to restrict the area of the dive - thats clever
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There are various opinions :D
Of course there are also those who use remote operated cameras on poles at the side of the 'bait' tank and focused on the surface of the water in the tank to capture the bird when it dives/emerges ... not sure if that's wildlife photography or an optical experiment!
 
I'd always wondered how it was done, as some of the images are taken with 500-600mm lenses. I couldn't imagine the skill required to pan at speed on of those :D
Your explanation makes a lot of sense. Ta
 
What high ISO is acceptable depends on the person taking the shots. Some will be happy with more grain than others.

If the bird is close then you will get away with higher ISO but still retain good detail and the image will clean up better than if the bird was 20 yards away.

If you can pre-focus then consider taking a remote shutter release to make things easier.

The main draw back with the D810 will be the FPS - with this type of subject I would think more is better. But you have all day - so hopefully you can get some great shots :)
 
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Here is one of a Kingfisher in flight this week, it's sort of okay as a record shot but I wouldn't be happy if it was from a special day attempting specifically to get one in flight!
This was only at 1/500 so you can see it's got blur and certainly isn't 'stopped' in flight so it does give you an idea of how easily it is to blow your chances if you think you can get a diving shot at low shutter speed :)


Flying.jpg
 
JustMe said:
Advice needed
I've got a unrepeatable opportunity this weekend photographing diving kingfishers from a hide.

I will be using a Nikon D810 with a Nikon 200-500mm lens.

My question is, what is the best focus settings and iso setting to freeze the bird?

I'm hoping I can pre focus but my thinking is this won't be possible and as I mainly do landscapes and macro I'm worried I might miss the shots.

Any advice would be very much appreciated
Click to expand...
If its a workshop (paid for hide) the guide will recomend a remote shutter i know two sites that recomend this .
If not then its just a case of seeing what your highest shutter speed you can get away with on the day .(the higher the better)
i have had to sit in the middle of a river in a portable hide and pre focus on a specific spot i have got diving shots this way,i do have pics but wont post them .
If its a workshop in scotland i know the birds are visiting quite a lot so oportunities are going to be their,you will soon get a feel for it once they start coming in so dont worry about missing shots ,i always factor in ther fact that my first session is always a tester for further shots ,sit back relax and enjoy ...
 
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Thank you every one for your advice it's much appreciated. Now how to guarantee the weather
 
perfect-kingfisher-dive-photo-wildlife-photography-alan-mcfayden-311.jpg


It took Alan McFadyen 6 years, 4,200 hours and 720,000 photos to get this shot:
 
Brachytron said:
And still he missed the tail off the reflection;)
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ermmmm i thought that too...but there for the grace of doubt go i

it would have been easy to slice the tail on the top part to make the shot...."perfect"

sde1 by mrcrow_uk, on Flickr

;)
 
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mrtoad said:
perfect-kingfisher-dive-photo-wildlife-photography-alan-mcfayden-311.jpg


It took Alan McFadyen 6 years, 4,200 hours and 720,000 photos to get this shot:
Click to expand...
I am assuming this was done with tanked fish below to up the percentage rate of getting a fantastic shot like this
 
FromTarn said:
I am assuming this was done with tanked fish below to up the percentage rate of getting a fantastic shot like this
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marvellous balance..could be a circus shot...:D
 
Hi . i am Raj from india I would like to know details about your hide set up and fish collection for kingfisher .. I know you would be kind enough to share your experience with me plzz share hide photos plzzz help me .
 
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rajdhage said:
Hi . i am Raj from india I would like to know details about your hide set up and fish collection for kingfisher .. I know you would be kind enough to share your experience with me plzz share hide photos plzzz help me .
Click to expand...

Raj.......click on the the" linky" Mr grubby ( Brian) has given you above in # 20 ^^^^^^ You might not have understood what Brian meant by linky he's given us a link to a very successful kingfisher photographer in the UK ,it should help with your questions:)

stu
 
@cruso
hi got the alert...
i am not sure i said anything to mean i knew the slightest thing about taking these shots....the shot is amazing
no bad vibes here
cheres
Geof
 
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