Blue-cheeked Bee-eater & neat perch

[Richard Flack]

133514

This is another image of these beautiful bee-eaters. Preferred the perch in this one.

Canon EOS 7D
100-400mm f5.6
ISO 320
Shutter speed 1/800
F-stop 6.3
Exposure bias +0.3

[Andre Pretorius]

Stunning bird with nice perch. Good angle, bird sharp. I have two crits: the green bird against a similar BG disappears a bit, maybe a masked layer for BG and reduce sat on greens. You have over sharpened it a bit.

Where is Mkhombo reserve?

Regards

Andre

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Excellent comp and pose, Richard. I like the worn perch and the grasses. As Andre said, I'd definitely ease up on the sharpening.

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely bird and pose. I am seeing a sharpening halo around the bird's beak and some crunchiness in the bird's feathers which points to oversharpening.

[Richard Flack]

Thanks for comments Marina, Sidharth and Andre. Will tone down the sharpening.
Andre, Mkhombo Dam Nature Reserve (or Rhenosterkop Dam) is about 2 hours north of Johannesburg (very near to the town of Libangene).