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Jewel of our River

Jewel of our River
Copyright ©2006, Jens Birch
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Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)

I took this picture of this true little jewel of the river this afternoon. I had been waiting for 3 hours at the same spot in the snow hoping that it should land on the pole. It came just before I was to give up.

It was getting pretty dark so I had to use ISO800 and RAW in order to keep the exposure time at 1/1000 sec to avoid camera shake even with the Tokina 300mm/2.8 set to f/2.8.

Unfortunately, the focus is a few cm in front of the bird but I hope you can appreciate its beauty nevertheless. Even with a KatzEye screen, it is hard to focus manually in a split second when light gets low. I took a burst of 4 photos in one sequence and the bird took off after the second shot... so I learnt to better focus right from the start with this fellow - no second chances here!

All the best, Jens.

Photographer: Jens Birch
Folder: Jens' Wildlife
Uploaded: 07-Jan-2006 21:22 CET
Current Rating: 8.33/3
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Model release available:
Camera: Olympus E1
Exposure time: 1/1000 s
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal length: 300mm(600mm)
Lens: Tokina AT-X 300/2.8
Focusing method: Manual
ISO: 800
White balance:
Flash: no
Image format: RAW
Processing applied: NeatImage noise reduction
Various:
Image resized to: 600x800

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Jewel of our River

Nice colors for offbrand glass! What is your take on Tokina in general? I hear many people use it, but whenever I see something in store it is always either for Canon or Nikon, hardly for Olympus.
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Sergey Green at 23:40 CET on 07-Jan-2006 [Reply]

Hi Sergey,

the lens is a manual focus Tokina AT-X 300/2.8 with OM mount. They are rare for Olympus so when I found one I hadyo buy it. I need all the light through the lens that I can get but I can't pay the $6000 for the Zuiko Digital 300/2.8. So, thisis a good compromise. I'm very satisfied with although I have only had it since October. I guess it will be even better in March April when we get a bit more light up here. I have no other experience with Tokina AT-X but I am looking for an AT-X 90 Macro which is supposed to be one of the best macros ever made (for 35 mm film...)

Cheers, Jens

Sergey Green wrote:
> Nice colors for offbrand glass! What is your take on Tokina in general? I hear many people
> use it, but whenever I see something in store it is always either for Canon or Nikon, hardly
> for Olympus.
> -
>

Jens Birch at 00:02 CET on 08-Jan-2006 [Reply]

NO SUBJECT

Great shot Jens..........bevellee

Bevellee Bryceson at 12:18 CET on 08-Jan-2006 [Reply]

Beautiful Bird and a

very nice pictures Jens.....

I only have seen it ones in the backyard that is located on a little stream of water.
The bird was gone in no time and I never had a change to make a picture from it..
I appreciate very much your posting of this beautiful bird, especialy when you have to sit for 3 hours in the snow waiting for it. Finally you where lucky and the waithing was paid of with this shot,
Thanks for posting......

regards,

Fonzy - at 18:34 CET on 08-Jan-2006 [Reply]