Lilac-breasted Roller

[Chad Caswell]

One from my recent trip to South Africa... I have so many images to sort through..


Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Chad Caswell
Caswell Photography
1/1600"
F7.1
Manual
400
13.5m
700mm

[gail bisson]

Chad,
I love this bird. In fact, this is the bird that converted me to avian photography. I wish we could see his tail better. The bird seems a tad dark on my monitor.
I like the comp and sharpness of bird but might selectively sharpen the eye a bit.
I love his foot resting on the top of the branch and a nice BG,
Gail

[Alan Eicoff]

Love this bird as well. Well done on the bird but agree would like to see more of the tail. Wondering if this would have looked better as a vertical or at least with the leaves sticking up in front of the bird removed. I find those leaves distracting.

[noelle zaleski]

Chad, I really like your LLBR, especially his feathers that look like whiskers. Nice sharp eye and details here.

I agree about the leaves being distracting.

Very pretty bird! :S3:

[Robert Amoruso]

Chad,

Some good comments above. I too find the in focus branch left of the bird distracting. You did well framing so as not to cut off the virtual (can't see it) tail. I would have preferred the head to be slightly turned away from you - beak looks a bit soft at the tip. That would have gotten you sharpness from eye to beak.

Good suggestion on the vertical and if you are so inclined cloning out the remaining branch in front of the bird. Be careful in post-processing as the BG is showing signs of posterization.

[Ofer Levy]

Stunning bird, nice eye contact and shooting angle. IQ is not great - not sure why.

[Chad Caswell]

Chad,
I love this bird. In fact, this is the bird that converted me to avian photography. I wish we could see his tail better. The bird seems a tad dark on my monitor.
I like the comp and sharpness of bird but might selectively sharpen the eye a bit.
I love his foot resting on the top of the branch and a nice BG,
Gail

Hi Gail,

Thanks for you kind comment on this image, what a bird to see.. and to see all them colors flashing when he fly's is incredible. I'm going to include a photo that shows the tail better, I'm not big into boring sky's like the one I included below but I like the pose he showed off to me. I checked the sharpness of the eye at 100% and it looks good, I'm having some issues posting here at such a small size when it comes to resizing my images, normally I post a bit larger.

Chad :S3:

[Chad Caswell]

Love this bird as well. Well done on the bird but agree would like to see more of the tail. Wondering if this would have looked better as a vertical or at least with the leaves sticking up in front of the bird removed. I find those leaves distracting.

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the C&C I included another shot that shows the tail more, as well as a vert crop.

Thanks! Chad

[gail bisson]

love this one so much better!
gail

[Chad Caswell]

Chad, I really like your LLBR, especially his feathers that look like whiskers. Nice sharp eye and details here.

I agree about the leaves being distracting.

Very pretty bird! :S3:

Thanks Noelle, you told me to remove them darn leaves didn't ya?? :t3:t3

PS I have a few files coming your way for PP soon :c3:

LP

[Chad Caswell]

Chad,

Some good comments above. I too find the in focus branch left of the bird distracting. You did well framing so as not to cut off the virtual (can't see it) tail. I would have preferred the head to be slightly turned away from you - beak looks a bit soft at the tip. That would have gotten you sharpness from eye to beak.

Good suggestion on the vertical and if you are so inclined cloning out the remaining branch in front of the bird. Be careful in post-processing as the BG is showing signs of posterization.


I believe the re-post image shows the head in a slightly different angle. as far as the BG goes I tried to "blue" up the sky some... it was a rather quick edit. :S3:

[noelle zaleski]

Really nice re-post Chad, this is such a pretty bird :S3:

[Craig Brelsford]

I like to study the image before scrolling down to the comments, so as to form an independent assessment. Viewing your original roller, I immediately liked the bird, lamented that I wasn't seeing more of the bird, thought that the leaves sticking up to the left were competing with the roller, and noticed the beginnings of posterization in the BG. Most of my impressions were backed up in the comments. So there you have it.

[Chad Caswell]

Thank you Craig :S3:

[Chad Caswell]

Really nice re-post Chad, this is such a pretty bird :S3:


Thank you SP :5