It's always nice to photograph in a new location, especially one that somebody has already prepared for you. Last week I visited Mark Hughes’ Kingfisher hide near Leeds. Mark has a very good set-up on private land by a small lake. Here, he’s constructed a large wooden hide for photographing the birds against the natural backgrounds. There are a variety of perches to lure the Kingfishers which can easily be changed thanks to a clever slot system that he’s devised. There are alternative perch sites to cater for 300mm and 500mm lenses.
The birds visited fairly regularly throughout the day that I was there, roughly once an hour, so there were plenty of photo opportunities. It was a pretty good day, photographically speaking, It seems that Mark also has a set-up for shooting diving birds which he hires out in the spring (www. markhughesimages.net) - I'll let you know what that's like after I've tried it.
Image: Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II, +1.4x III 1/400th sec @ f/5.6, ISO 500, tripod with Uniqball head, hide
Image: Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II + 1.4x III, 1/800th sec @ f/7.1, ISO 800, tripod with Uniqball head, hide
Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II 1/400th sec @ f/75.6, ISO 3200, tripod, hide
Canon EOS 1DX, EF500mm f/4L IS II + 1.4x III, 1/1000th sec @ f/7.1, ISO 2000, tripod with Uniqball head, hide