Back to the Beginning

Welcome to my blog, after some time thinking that I should start a blog I have finally done it and started.

First up is one of my favorite subjects to photograph the Sacred Kingfisher (kōtare). One of the subjects that I have spent hours and hours photographing, I love their amazing colours. The blues and greens mixed with the hint of white and yellow is so striking.

I am very lucky to live very close to Pauatahanui Inlet. This inlet has a large number of kingfishers that call it home and over the winter months they spend their time feeding on the mud crabs. This gives some great opportunities to photograph some beautiful action images.

The other day while looking through some of my old hard drives I came across a folder of unedited images from 2013. I found some new Kingfisher images that had not seen life outside of the hard drive. Some of them deserved to be shared and seen by you :)

First up is a flying Kingfisher from 2013, this is when I really started getting into photography and my love for the Kingfisher started.

To capture an image like this you need to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the wings. This image would have been better if the tips of the wings and beak where not in front of the branch. This would have given more separation between the branch and the Kingfisher.

Image details - ISO 1600, f8, 1/2000th sec, Canon 5D3 with Canon EF 400mm f2.8L IS II USM + 2x III

Sometimes you get lucky and get more than one Kingfisher in the image. With this image I get extra lucky as one of the Kingfishers has a crab in its beak.

Image details - ISO 1600, f8, 1/1600th sec, Canon 5D3 with Canon EF 400mm f2.8L IS II USM + 2x III

So after finding these new images I thought it was time to visit the inlet again to see if the Kingfishers had returned for the winter. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few dancing over the mud flats feeding on the crabs. The next two images were taken this week. The first is a simple portrait image, with this image I like the complementing colours in the background with the colours in the feathers. The second image is a diving Kingfisher with lunch.

Image details - ISO 800, f8, 1/1250th sec, Canon 1DXII with Canon EF 400mm f2.8L IS II USM + 1.4x III

With the diving image below, I would have liked the Kingfisher to fly towards me out of the water rather than away from me. Oh well there is always next week. I will be back to see if I can capture more of these diving images.