Azure Kingfisher

Gorgeous presentation with bg, colors and texture at gallery level!!!  Warm regards.

Beautiful nature capture. Congrats.

Very nice shot, Ford.  If it's anything like the kingfishers in my neck of the woods they never stay still long enough to get many shots!

This is very impressive! I really like the diagonal perch and the grasses. The details like the water droplets and sharpness is delightful along with the colours and nicely blurred backdrop. Very well done 7

Best Regards

Alf

Thanks sincerely for your kind comments folks.

A lovely presentation of a very active bird. The DoF is beautifully managed as is the colour of the Kingfisher.

A great image.........

My only tiny nitpik would have been to take out one of the eye-highlights caused by the flash.

Best regards

Thanks for picking that nit, Grayham.

I often wonder about the second eye highlight when using flash. However,  no one I have discussed it with has given me a rational, convincing reason to remove it from images. Some photographers remove it when shooting fauna in studio/captivity situations to make an image look "natural". The desired perception being that a single highlight is caused by the sun.

As 99.9% of my work is done in the bush and I do occasionally use flash (or more often, reflectors), I can't see much justification to remove the second (or third) highlight to adhere to what merely seems to be a convention.

Removing the extra highlight(s) is an extremely easy thing to do - but why is it done? It is an interesting question.

I would be interested to read other peoples' perspectives on this.

"Some photographers remove it when shooting fauna in studio/captivity situations to make an image look "natural". The desired perception being that a single highlight is caused by the sun."

I think you may have "summed" it up here. As a wildlife hobbyist these days, I think that I tend to "see" a single eye highlight (caused by the sun) when out shooting.... and so ones eye gets used to that scenario. To see 2 highlights in an obviously "wild" habitat image is unusual for me and therefore causes me to "see it" probably more quickly (or even at all) than others.

Regarding "convention".... you could be right, although I suppose it is all about what ones "eye" sees in regards to ones acceptability.

The Guru's could well pontificate for hours here....... hopefully interesting reading.

Still a great image.

Best regards 

Thanks Grayham. First name = Ford

It is an interesting question that you have raised, wether it matters or not if there is a single catchlight or multiples.  Personally I wasn't drawn to noticing it, other than thinking it made the image look sharp. But we photographers do tend to examine things closely, specifically when it is a genre of photography that we specialise in.  For me I notice horizons, and compositions and if I see an image that has even a 1% incline one way or another at the horizon, it stands out like a sore thumb to me. I suspect thats just how the multiple catchlights looked to Grayham. But to put it all in perspective, Ford asked "Does it matter"? Well that depends on your target audience I suppose, if you are proposing to enter a contest with such an image and there are experienced wildlife photographers who are going to decide the winner, then yes I suppose it could matter a great deal. If on the other hand your target audience is the general public, then I seriously doubt if anyone would notice. For me it really "doesn't matter" the end justifies the means, and the image has so many excellent qualities that the double catchlights pale into insignificance. However if it was a landscape and the horizon was tilted, no matter how great the landscape, I would feel obliged to tell you, even in the knowledge that, like the catchlights it is something that can be very easilly rectified. The reason I would feel obliged to point it out is simple, and that is because I have missed some very obvious mistakes in images I have posted in the past, and been most grateful when these mistakes have been recognised on here, allowing me the opportunity to correct them before I post them anywhere else or even print them. I hope this gives a reasonable perspective of both views.

Best Regards

Alf

Thanks for your detailed comment, Alf.

As you say, misaligned horizons (unless intentional) should be corrected to restore an expected balance in the image. A poorly aligned horizon is in most cases due to a lack of care in preparing the shot. (There are exceptions, eg shooting from a banking helicopter and you are trying to avoid getting the rotor disc/skids in the image so you frame within the available gap.)

However, I think that extra eye highlights fall into a different category - they are artifacts of a lighting technique - not a reflection (no pun intended) of poor practice or discipline.

My quandary is that removing them seems to be a denial that you used a flash to adjust the available lighting.

I sent an email to Grayham about this and raised the matter of shooting nocturnal animals. Why would you remove extra eye highlights in a night shot for example? There is no sun to provide a single highlight at night. And obviously, the only way you can image the animal properly is to use paired flashes. So do you remove all the eye highlights to indicate that the shot was taken in total darkness? This then leads on to the relationship between the observed and the observer.

When we take a wildlife shot, are we pretending that we weren't really there and the subject is behaving "normally"? I really don't think this is the case behaviourally, unless the subject really is unaware of human presence (eg using hides) or has become inured to human presence (like the places where you go to photograph semi tame fauna).

It just seems to me that this eye highlight thing is a convention adopted from human portraiture and an attempt to make an image look "natural". As such, it seems to be a matter of convention or personal taste that defies rational reason.

I would be happy to consider other reasoning on the subject.

Many Thanks for your detailed explanation.  I can't fault your logic.  And I can follow your reasoning, reference "a convention adopted from human portraiture" which I concur is the most likely explanation. Therefore it is my contention that it is the perception of what is natural by the viewer, rather than the actual that comes to the fore in Grayhams comment. The expectation or belief of what is right or wrong by convention, rather than an acceptance of what is actual fact. In other words I agree with your analogy almost entirely, but reserve some judgement for those that have followed convention, in the belief that what they have been taught is right. Convention and rules should always be challenged though, and in all fairness you couldnt have chose a better image to put forward your case. My example of a tilted horizon wasn't a great comparison, however I'm struggling to find a better example of popular photographic perception or misconception that could be used to reinforce my perspective. But generally there are certain photographic taboos like, tilted horizons, blown highlights, central compositions, deep shadow, blurred movement, all of which at some time, some one wil perceive as being "wrong" by convention, and because of so called "rules" these generalisations become accepted. Hope I haven't flogged the subject to death : - )

Best Regards

Alf

Looks Great! Good shot!