Having failed over many years to obtain a good #Kingfisher shot, a while ago I decided to follow some of my Wirral Photographers #compatriots in ‘booking’ a dedicated Kingfisher hide. This was on a private estate on the #River #Tern, in #Shropshire.
The host had setup a small ‘bath’, protruding over the river, with a deeper bucket in the middle to hold small fish as the ‘bait’. At the far end of the bath was a twig for the Kingfishers to rest on to observe the fish and dive down from. Looking at some of their images I realised the birds would be within 2 metres so #focussing, shutter speed and depth of field would be #critical. Pre-focussing on a temporary rod in the middle of the bucket would aid focus on the ‘diving’ images – as long as the bird always went into the middle of the bucket, which they would not as where they entered the bucket was determined by the #fish position.
Irrespective, figuring out how much depth of field was needed was a practical issue; as was the shutter speed. Consequently, at home, I setup a ‘mock’ arrangement, with a #cardboard #model of a Kingfisher and a heavy ball to gauge depth of field and shutter speed. Unfortunately I did not take into account that flying down (diving) into the bucket would be faster than a straight gravity-induced fall. So my ‘calculated’ shutter speed should have been 2x faster than my ‘calculated’ 1/4000S at f8.
I also appreciated I could not keep going out of the hide to change batteries as I may put the hunting birds off. So I rigged the outside camera with a largish power bank and a dummy battery, sufficient to last all day, irrespective of how many shots were taken
On being taken to the hide, by the host, he suggested a shutter speed of 1/128S whereas I had determined 1/4000S {which as indicated above would have been better at 1/8000S}. The booking was from 08:00am to 17:00pm. During that time the Kingfishers showed 17 times. Whilst I enjoyed the day, it was quite ‘lonely’ sitting in the hide all by myself, waiting quietly and movement-free for the Kingfishers to return.
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Excellent blog, great description of what happened and how it happened, superb pictures of a kingfisher, coupled with that information on camera settings. Excellent information. Well done Les.