Southern Carmine Bee-eater

[Chris van Rooyen]

This image is also from my trip last week to the Okavango. The carmines had just arrived and started to excavate the river bank. They were very skittish and getting good images was very difficult. Hopefully they will settle down and get more approachable later in the season.

I have had a few request for information on my web sharpening technique. Here it is:

First I resize the image to twice the posting size i.e. say to 2000 pixels on the widest axis at 72 ppi. I then run the sharpen filter (filter - sharpen - sharpen) once over the whole image. I then reduce the image to posting size (i.e. 1000 pixels). Often this results in adequate sharpness. If need be, I will run an additional weak smart sharpening over the image once at amount 30%, radius 0.3. After this I create a duplicate layer and run a Gaussian blur on that layer at radius 2.5 pixels to remove noise and sharpening artefacts in the background (this is not always necessary if the background is smooth already). I then erase this layer over the areas that need to be sharp (e.g. the bird and other parts of the image which are on the same focal plane as the bird).

Hope this makes sense:)

[Victor Soares]

WOW !! Can't beat that wing position - that's awesome. Once again top-notch stuff here Chris. Love the deatil.

[Tony Whitehead]

Very cool, Chris. Looks like a jet fighter doing a pass. Desaturating the yellow/green areas in the BG may be an option. Lovely plumage detail.

[Geurt Bloem]

For a "skittish" and "unsettle" subject, this one "flashed" you very well Chris. Love the image for its detail in the subject, colour, out of focus background and general light quality. Thanks for the discussion on methodology as well and I'll test it sometime.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Chris,
I agree with Victor that this is top notch stuff. Love the wing position, sharpness and the eye. Would love to visit Okavango sometime.

[Tell Dickinson]

Love it Chris, wing position, slight dive, colours, bg etc etc :)

Tell

[Hendri Venter]

This is beautiful Chris. The wing position is perfect and the detail outstanding. I like the way you retained the natural colours.

[Ajit Huilgol]

A lovely image, Chris, of a bird that I would love to see someday. Maybe, you could clone out the smaller of the two catchlights in the bird's eye?

[Joe Senzatimore]

Fantastic capture with great light and detail. Also love the color captured here. Thanks for the methodology on your sharpening. Will give it a try.

[Keith Bauer]

This is beautiful. I really like the "bullet" like pose this presents. Thx for sharing this one.

[Stu Bowie]

Well timed to capture the full wingspread Chris, and I like the colours in this. Great capture.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great wing position, sharpness and light. If the bird wouldn't fly away from you it would have been even stronger.

[David Fletcher]

Nailed this Chris. Extraordinarily good pose and colors. Top shot!

[Graham Smith.]

Very nice shot Chris. I guess you don't need to be too concerned with depth of field for a pose like this!
Thanks for sharing you sharpening methods - I'll definately give it a go.

Graham.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Beautiful under-wing details. And thanks for sharing your technique with us. Next time I will see if I can do this to one of my images since it sounds like a good one.

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Like the banking angle of flight displaying the underwing & body detail & colours. Exposure is spot-on & BG nicely OOF. Great image Chris!

[Ramon M. Casares]

Stunning pose, species, BG, detail, colors, comp and sharpness, not the ideal light but still, VERY nice.
Congratulairons!

[Chris van Rooyen]

THanks very much for the comments and suggestions guys:)

[Lorant Voros]

Chris,

Wonderful image from a dream destination. Thank you for the sharpening advice; I will try it out.

[Arno Ellmer]

Superb capture,Chris ! Wing position and sharpness exceptional.

[Elmar Venter]

Chris, this is truly magnificent. It must be difficult to keep up to your own high standards! Thank you for sharing your sharpening technique.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Thanks for sharing the sharpening tech Chris! super banking image and hope the birds are less skittish next month. Going up to Shakawe next month for a week, cant wait!!!

[Dr.Pranay Rao Juvvadi]

Not easy to get these in flight. You froze it very well. The flight angle and the out-stretched wings are wonderful.