White breasted Kingfisher...

[Bibhav Behera]

Got this shot in the morning today... Shoot your takes on it... (Sorry about the border. I keep forgetting )

Nikon D80 + 18-135 mm Nikon Lens
Exp 1/80
f5.6
ISO 100

[Udai Bisht]

Nice shot, Bibhav. A pity it is on the wire. But I know you can't help it. It is also good you were a bit far. A little more underneath it and there could have been an accident.

[Bibhav Behera]

Thanks Udai... the light was not too conducive and the subject was getting underexposed due to the bright background. I tried overexposing the background to get the bird right but then the background got so bright it made no sense. So I had to improve the shadow areas a bit to bring out detail.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Bibhav,

Which metering mode did you use?

When the subject is smaller in the frrame, the meter tends to be fooled by the bright sky and tries to expose according to the sky. So your subject gets underexposed. You can check your histogram as well. Before you start stalking, set your exposure keeping in mind the sky. I have seen people looking at the histograms rather than concentrating on the subject.

[Bibhav Behera]

I used spot metering. It was very bright at that time and I used used full manual controls (ISO, exp and f)