Eastern Spinebill and honey-bee at the pool

[Ian Wilson]

The Eastern Spinebill is a member of the honey-eater family. They love to dive into the water and bounce right out, all in a few tenths of a second. They seem to delight in making as big a splash as possible and dive in repeatedly until thoroughly wet, then retreat to a safe branch for a long preening session. The bird in the image has just emerged from the water and is on the way up, sharing the airspace with a honey-bee which came to the pool for a drink. This is another capture in our garden using the high-speed multiple synchronized flash set-up described previously.

Canon 5DIII + 300 mm f/2.8L II + 1.4x III extender, three 600EX-RT flash units, RS-80N3 remote shutter release, 3532LS Gitzo tripod, Kirkphoto King Cobra gimbal.

Pre-set manual focus, manual camera settings, f/14, 1/200 sec, ISO 125, 1/8 flash power.

Processed in DPP4: adjust shad/h'lights (+1,-1), saturation (+1), luminance NR (0), chrominance NR (2), sharpness (3), crop, RAW-TIFF. PS Elements: select bird and bee, surface blur background to reduce file size, remove two flash h'lights from bird's eye, downsize, sharpen, TIFF-JPEG.

 

[vishaljadhav]

Wow action image
sharp where it needs to be, the drama captured is nice
the bee and water drops make it more special

 

[William Dickson]

This is great Ian. Amazing capture of the bird and water droplets. I like the blur on the wings which brings the image alive, the sharpness of the head is perfect. I would love to be able to do a set-up like this. I bet the wee bee got a fright :S3:. Well done

 

[keith mitchell]

Ian you really have got this off pat, really like this ,excellent detail and clarity ,Bees a bonus, love it!

Keith.

 

[Morkel Erasmus]

Certainly is a cool moment - lovely timing and the bee adds to the shot.
I am not personally a fan of this "flashed" look, especially on the droplets, but I know this technique works well with smaller fast birds like hummingbirds. I think perhaps toning down the apparent sharpness of the droplets will help the eye to focus better on the bathing bird?

 

[Marina Scarr]

What a great action shot, Ian. Love the water droplets and the insect caught in the frame is a huge plus. I am good with the droplets as they are but it may look even better with sharpening only the bird. I would try dodging the green grasses in the front which look flashed to give the BG & FG an all around more even look.

 

[Gerhard Weldhagen]

Ripper shot - well done on the very sharp action!

 

[Shawn Zierman]

If ever a bird photograph showed a bird enjoying itself...this is it! Love the facial expression...could take or leave the bee as it is not in focus, to me it's just sort of a bee "photobomb" , or maybe it's the icing on the cake...can't tell for sure. What I do know is that it's a very engaging image...best of the recent birdbath images from you, and all have been very good.

 

[Alan Murphy]

The pose, action and amazing detail is so amazing that I find the OOF bee distracting and adds nothing to the context of the image. Great work.

 

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Ian, great action captured here, and love the HA of the bird emerging from the water - great eye too. I do like the colours of this species, even though we cant see all of him, and the honey bee adds interest, as if the bird is there to catch him.

 

[Daniel Cadieux]

What a joyous pose!! Sweet as can be, and a perfect head angle too. Love the splashing water drops and undulating water surface. I'm not a huge fan of the wasp...I'd have liked it much better had it been on the same plane of focus as main subject. Keep them coming...loving this series.

 

[Binu John]

Another great shot from the series, Ian! Brilliant use of flash as usual! Love the pose, BG, colors and water splash! Well done!

 

[christopher galeski]

its all been said ,a great image,love the water dropsand the birds not bad either,agree with Alen's comment about the bee,but it s a magic image,well done.

 

[Satish Ranadive]

Spectacular action captured. Beautiful pose with nice HA.Love the open beak, beautiful red eye and flash of water.

Regards,
Satish.

 

[David Salem]

Another really cool and unique image. The water spray and the clear bird are perfect. I too dont think the bee adds much to the image. Very nice.

 

[Sridatta Chegu]

Stunning shot and what a beauty! One of the best water splash shots I have seen. Great exposure with flash, excellent details and superb action.

 

[Ian Wilson]

Thanks everyone for your generous feedback and helpful advice on this image. One of the points of interest is the oof bee that Shawn amusingly suggested had "photo-bombed" the shot. I was in two minds about including the bee and I probably should have removed it before posting. However, today I decided to select the bee and play around with a few sharpening options and was surprised to find that the 'remove lens blur' and 'remove Gaussian blur' tools in PS were reasonably effective, though not perfect. In this repost you can see the improvement although probably not quite enough to save the bee. Cheers, Ian.