People's Choice Award shortlist for 2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Announced

Jealousy is an ugly trait!

Not jealousy. Mafart killed someone who was trying to protect the environment.

Please stop complaining about lack of safe space and let's focus on making Dpreview great again.

I was going to say it was photoshopped tail blur. But I looked at the setup and he used 4 flashes and slower shutter speed. I do strobing and if you rear flash sync you will get a trail with slower shutter speed and a sharp image (maybe not pixel peeping). He might of enhance the trail, but that that is minor adjustment.

I think he just knows how to paint with light. The trail matches the illuminance levels of the bird with a shiny back and brighter 'cheeks' on the side of the birds face. The trail is far less evident on the reflection because the 'canvas' or luminescence levels are far brighter in that part of the scene. Just like car headlights only 'paint' in the dark, not so much in sunlight.

He also used a constant light source in addition to flashes in order get that effect. Cool setup.

It's the photographer not the camera :-)

@Nick Brundle. I think Sir Corey's problem is pronounced 'having an opinion that doesn't match mine'.

Hole in one there, Jenny!

No...it wasn't a hole in one. Your comment was nearly an attack on the photographers displayed....condescending, and self important.

"And if you want to see MY images, you can pay for them like everyone else "
So you run a adult only site

"Toss up the untouched RAW file, and if legit, these photos instantly go from "amazing" to LEGENDARY."
No they would not they are legit already none of them beside the Kingfisher image are particularly hard from a technical point and even that image I know how it can be done without PS. These are all very good images none of them scream fake or PS beside normal post processing. Now could there be elements that were cloned out to clean them up a little maybe since I don't know the rules to this contest I am not going to guess.

There and they're.

Sir Corey of Deane
"YOU have a problem in differentiating between 'there' and 'their'."
And you "Sir" have a problem differentiating between "their" and "they're"

^^^

Thanks for the link. After seeing and reading that, I'm even more convinced that this one has to be fake. I hope the judges are planning on asking the winners for a look at the original RAW file.

It looks real to me, I understand how it could be taken, but it would take a lot of patience.

Kingfishers can and do fish from favorite perches. Im gonna give the photographer credit where credit is due, and say great artistic shot.

I would guess the image is real but taken at a set up. Once you find a favorite pond and perch you place a 10 gallon aquarium filled with fish just under the water. You now know exactly were the Kingfisher will dive so you can set up the strobes get in your hide and fire away. The use of rear curtain flash to create the trail is unique and sets it apart from other Kingfisher images I have seen taken at a set up. Would also guess he used a high speed trigger to set off the flash just as the bird was hitting the water.

@togpeter If the shutter speed was slow enough to create a trail effect, the entire bird would be a blur. Makes no sense.

@kurt_k no, Google for second curtain flash and see many examples (mostly sports with actions leading to final image being a blur but the final position being sharp).

The real surprise is not having any Iphones....but we will see them soon enough :)

I like the bison picture, shows impeccable timing and probably took a lot of stalking. The Chinese monkeys is weaker to me, but each to their own.

As far as the anthropomorphic monkeys go, the term seems tad self indulgent to me. That's not accidental behaviour that looks human, that's just their behaviour; they are smart, loving creatures.

Yep, homonids gonna be homonids.

Photo Pete - yes, the "missing" blue trail does make the photo looks a bit unbalanced. Maybe something was forgotten during the editing. Nevertheless, fundamentally a great shot!

If this image is legit, it is a masterpiece. However, I'm having a very hard time convincing myself that it is. I shoot with flash a lot, and at 1/15 Sec., I've never seen an image where blur/Ghosting is not present over an entire moving subject -- not just a part of the moving subject, if there is any ambient light at all. Then there is the water effect where the bird's beak is hitting the water at tremendous speed -- it is identical to the areas where the stationary reeds exit the water, yet it says that continuous light was used @ 1/15 Sec to "capture the wake" -- there is no wake.
Then there is the whole issue of setting up multiple flashes situated to light a random bird dive close enough to get enough output to light the bird and freeze motion.
The description of the image says he used "a high shutter speed" -- since when is 1/15 Sec. a high shutter speed?
If I am totally off base, my apologies to the photographer, but the image looks suspect to me.

It would be a pity if this is faked. It is such a fantastic shot.

Unfortunately, the "water effect" hints at it being faked. The small dips in the water at each reed is due to water tension. It would not look the same at the beak. It is impossible.

So, until proven otherwise, I assume this as a Photoshopped image. Which is a shame actually.

Hope the photographer can show that it is essentially correct, just with some small enhancements. Would be nice to see the origanal, before post processing.

Baldcol -

Maybe he's just a damned good photographer and we are just struggling to see how he achieved the result!

Maybe. But ... the question is not whether he has made some photoshopping but how much. How close is it to the original? Maybe it is just some prettifying and maybe it is much more. Do not know.

As I said, and say again - it would be nice to see the unprocessed original.

Maybe an article here in DPR, telling us how he did it!

The bird may have been spreading is wings during the exposure, which could explain the shape of the trail. Still, the back is very bright because of the location of the flashes and a specific angles of reflection, I guess. Before the flash fires out, I would expect the bird to have a more uniform brightness. This makes the trail, very bright in the center, look suspicious to me.

Roland - I'd be utterly astonished if ANY competition-winning photograph was pure and untouched. I would imagine that virtually all published professional images have been tweaked in post to some degree.

In some very rare cases this tweaking may consist of cropping and a few adjustments to contrast, saturation, colour balance and sharpness. In most cases it will also involve the use of masking, layers, cloning and a multitude of other techniques to achieve the final image.

As you suggest, it would be great to see an article about how the image was produced. Technique articles are always fascinating, but this is of course primarily a website about equipment.

JamesF168, it is not as simple as you make it sound. If there was enough ambient light available to register the trail from the bright back feathers at 1/15 Sec., there is no way that I can imaging that the rest of the bird is frozen razor sharp -- it just doesn't happen in my experience. Go look up some rear curtain flash shots and you will see that there is always some 'ghosting' across the entire subject, not just the brightest part.
In addition, think of all that would have to come together to randomly capture such an image.
If this image is legit, it ranks as the most incredible capture I've ever viewed, but I have to seriously doubt that it is.

And here you have some more.

http://www.mindenpictures.com/search?s=mario+cea

He is obviously a very good photographer. Lots of nice photos. But, some of the pictures looks a bit too good to be true IMHO.

My issue it the bg looks painted, just like the trail.
Rear curtain sync doesn't look like this.
The trail would be covering the bird too unless he could turn off the ambient a split second before the rear sync fires.

As for the picture of the Bat breaking glass, the depth of field doesn't match. Looks like a composite.

Looking at the kingfisher again. It looks like a painting. Everything is perfect. Even the reeds are perfectly positioned. The mirror image is, with two small exceptions, totally flawless. Sharp and nice. The beak hits the water with exactly the same look as the reeds. The water is dark where it should be dark and light where it should be light. This picture is a miracle, or it is heavy manipulated. And I do not believe in miracles.

The question is only, how close to this did the original look?

Maybe close enough so this is a reasonable interpretation. Or not.

Hmmm .. found this

http://www.digitalphoto.de/news/gdt-europaeischer-naturfotograf-des-jahres-100283082.html?page=19

Bird and mirror and reeds with mirror. Creepy.

I think I am out of here!

He actually didn't serve his sentence, he was removed by the French prematurely in violation of their international agreement.

I just read the wiki article, pretty terrible story. Hard to believe that France would condone such a blatant act of terrorism against an allied nation.