Green Bee-eater (Merops orientalis)

[tecomella]

I do feel if I had gone a little right, the two specimens would have been more exclusive. Now they have merged into one another.
The picture was taken 40 Km from Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.
Date: 22nd April 2007
Thanks in advance for Comments and critiques

Nikon D50
Nikkor 300mm f/4 + 1.4X TC

Aperture Priority at f 7.1, 1/640sec ISO 400

Regards
Gaurav

[John Cooper]

Yes I agree with you Gaurav - I think in this case less is more. The single bird closest would have made a nice composition without its mate behind. Or, as you suggested, come more around to the right to provide more separation. Great BG.

[Ian McHenry]

I like the bird profiles. Never easy to get two looking in your general direction.
The bird in the rear seems slightly out of focus which so often happens.
Could be worth trying closing down aperture to say F11 for more DOF.
Cheers: Ian McHenry

[Maxis Gamez]

Nothing to say but a very nice image. The composition is great and colors are fantastic. Very interesting looking bird.

[Linda Robbins]

I live your careful composition, and you did a great job waiting to capture the image when the birds both had good head angles.
Beautiful color and bg. More depth of field would have been preferable, but still a lovely image.

[Del Cockroft]

Wonderful colours and very clean detail. Despite the birds overlapping this is a nice pleasing image.

[Krijn Trimbos]

I agree that it would have been better without the other bird in that particular spot. I think it is because it has the same colours and merges with the front bird, which IMO has a negative impact on how much the front bird stands out from the BG. If it wouldn't have merged with the front bird it would have given the whole shot more depth. Other than that it is a very nice shot, good exposure colours, perch and headturn. I would get rid of the dustspots, UL and LR. Cheers

[Shaoqing He]

But I think overlapping is ok for me, at least, the picture tells us a story. Nice birds, nice capture.

[Glenn Bartley]

This is really nice. If they stayed put I think it would have been worth it to try for some more DOF. Sometmes its tough to get both birds sharp even when down at f/11 or f/16. In this case though I think somewhere in that zone would have worked. The colors are fantastic! My only real nit is the few dust spots in the BG.

[Jon Swanson]

Besides the DOF, it is a fine capture with great colors.

[Raymond Barlow]

very cool image, a single bird would be killer with this perch and bg., but congrats on a fabulous image either way.

[Chris van Rooyen]

Amazing looking birds. I like the way in which the diagonal shadow in the back is an inverse repetition of the angle of the perch with the birds. The OOF bird in the back does not really bother me.

[tecomella]

Shooting handheld almost all the time without a VR lens really limits my photographs sometimes. I am always at a dilemma of balancing ISO, aperture and shutter to get the sharpest and cleanest image. I eventually end up at f/5.6 or f/8 at the most in good light conditions.
I liked the two-bird image because these bee-eaters are very often found in pairs. I also have a photograph of a single bird but it would be nothing else but portraiture.
Thanks so much for criticizing, analyzing, and appreciating the photograph.
Thanks again
Gaurav