Many, many years ago, in the days of film, I was apprenticed to a professional photographer and he gave me many valuable bits of advice. One of which was the difference between an amateur and pro photographer is that the amateur will show you his full set of 36 shots printed at 6" x 4", whereas the pro will only show you his best 1 or 2 shots at 16" x 12".
So, based on that, you won't ever see my rubbish shots. If there is anything wrong, I will press the delete button and I can assure you that I press that as much as any of you.
However, even though this should be a deleted shot, because it is not sharp, I have kept it to remind me of the difficulty of the shoot and just how quick these little blighters are. As you are already aware, I spent some time photographing Kingfishers diving. To get a reasonable sized image, you can't do it without some props, to limit the area in which they will dive. I know, because I have tried for many years. This was a large bucket in width and depth stocked with minnows and the camera was pre-focussed to the centre-point of the bucket. Great if the Kingfisher played ball and dives into the centre. This rarely happened, so a generous depth of field was required. They are also blindingly fast so a high shutter speed was required and as the perch was only 3 foot above the water, lightning reflexes were also required. Finally, owing to the normal amount of UK light, to get the required settings, a high ISO was needed.
I started at 1/2000sec, F8 and ISO 2000, which seemed quite reasonable and my success rate was appalling. I then decided to go for it and changed my settings to 1/3,200sec, F11 and ISO 4000, as the light had improved. As my reflexes also improved I started to get some results, but this shot was the only one I got of it in mid dive and it's still not critically sharp.
I spent over 13 hours in the hide and although I got plenty of good shots on the perch, very few successful diving shots and I had to be fully alert the whole time. It could take a couple of hours for one to show up, but the next one could be there within 10 minutes.
Note to self: invent radio controlled Kingfishers!
So, based on that, you won't ever see my rubbish shots. If there is anything wrong, I will press the delete button and I can assure you that I press that as much as any of you.
However, even though this should be a deleted shot, because it is not sharp, I have kept it to remind me of the difficulty of the shoot and just how quick these little blighters are. As you are already aware, I spent some time photographing Kingfishers diving. To get a reasonable sized image, you can't do it without some props, to limit the area in which they will dive. I know, because I have tried for many years. This was a large bucket in width and depth stocked with minnows and the camera was pre-focussed to the centre-point of the bucket. Great if the Kingfisher played ball and dives into the centre. This rarely happened, so a generous depth of field was required. They are also blindingly fast so a high shutter speed was required and as the perch was only 3 foot above the water, lightning reflexes were also required. Finally, owing to the normal amount of UK light, to get the required settings, a high ISO was needed.
I started at 1/2000sec, F8 and ISO 2000, which seemed quite reasonable and my success rate was appalling. I then decided to go for it and changed my settings to 1/3,200sec, F11 and ISO 4000, as the light had improved. As my reflexes also improved I started to get some results, but this shot was the only one I got of it in mid dive and it's still not critically sharp.
I spent over 13 hours in the hide and although I got plenty of good shots on the perch, very few successful diving shots and I had to be fully alert the whole time. It could take a couple of hours for one to show up, but the next one could be there within 10 minutes.
Note to self: invent radio controlled Kingfishers!
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