It’s taken a long-time this year to get these particular shots of the Kingfishers which started many months ago, originally with the adults.
I have been trying to get very dark backgrounds to create an almost studio-like image. I appreciate that these style of photographs are not to everyone’s taste, but the idea was to create a contrast to bring out the detail in the feathers.
The problem I have had this year is that every time I set the scene, the river has dried out before I manage to capture any shots. However, I found an area where the river has pooled and it seems to be a popular dive spot. This scene has been set for 3 days, however, every morning since has been cloudy. I was awake at 6am this morning and again, the skies were unseasonably cloudy. Slightly later, there seemed be a large gap in the cloud cover so I headed down to the river and got lucky before the cloud re-appeared.
There was a pair of juveniles at the spot, unfortunately, the female didn’t come out into the light, but the male was very happy on the perch. The light still wasn’t great, but good enough even though I was shooting with a slightly slower shutter speed to what I was hoping for. Luckily, he stayed still enough for long enough!
The big giveaway that this is a young male is the legs, you’ll notice that they are not bright coloured, adult Kingfishers have very bright coloured legs.
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📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 1/640sec, f/8, ISO500
📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 1/640sec, f/8, ISO640
Just to bring you a photo to show the difference, here is a image of the young female hiding in the shadows. You will notice that her lower beak has already started to turn a red colour. Adult females have a completely red lower beak whereas the males remain black.
📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 1/160sec, f/11, ISO3200