PhotoSP
Plate 81. Photographing any bird is never easy but Kingfishers bring their own set of difficulties. For a start they’re quite elusive, small, fly very fast low over water and although not shy of people they often hunt well out of the way. So having found their winter hunting grounds and taken a few ‘keeper’ portrait shots the next challenges are action shots, diving and flying to be specific. For this you need light... lots of light, a high shutter speed and preferably a low ISO setting on your camera, a long lens with a wide aperture and a high frame rate. My location was in a public hide, which thankfully has the sun at its back, so the birds were front lit and the colourful background on the water was the reflection from a reed bed, which with winter sun offers a rich warm glow. Okay, now all I needed was a calm day for mirror smooth reflections. So far all my wish list was in place. But how do you get a Kingfisher to fly past you... you don’t.
Having observed the bird’s diving, I noticed a behaviour pattern - if a Kingfisher has a successful dive it never returns to its high hunting perch. It has a tendency to fly, with its catch, in the direction of the dive, keeping low over the water with the intention of landing on a low branch to consume the unlucky Stickleback ...this makes for fly-by opportunities. Now I’m set, the Kingfisher makes a dive, I get autofocus lock on the surfacing bird and track it taking off, firing the camera at 20 frames per second I get 29 fames, so the whole process takes just under 1.5 seconds start to finish. Successful photographs of Kingfishers requires a good camera kit, experience and if you don’t have a bit of luck you’ll get nothing more than blank framed blurry pictures - I was lucky that day but then again you make your own luck.
SCOTTISH BIRDS Volume 43 (1)
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John Agnew, East Kilbride, Clyde. Email: johnagnew1@btinternet.com
Featuring the best images posted on the SOC website each quarter, PhotoSpot will present stunning portraits as well as record shots of something interesting, accompanied by the story behind the photograph and the equipment used. Upload your photos now - it’s open to all.
March 2023
Equipment used Nikon Z9 camera, Nikkor 400mm f4.5 lens with Nikon Z1.4x teleconverter, Manual, 1/1,000 second, ISO 2,000, f6.3.
Scottish Birds published by the SCOTTISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ CLUB
V O L U M E 4 3 ( 1)
MARC H 2023