European roller admiring the sunrise

This is a photo from the last weekend - Bulgaria, near Nikopol city.

I've dreamed of photographing this lovely bird quite a lot time ago, until a colegue of mine, the Dobromir Dobrinov (nicknamed falcon in our country) togather with Ivo Zafirov told me of this place, where the European roller can be "caught". Well, we really dig ourselves for a weekend to do some lovely photos. Here is one of them, from the second day, early in the morning at 7:30 AM.

Canon Mark II N, Sigma 300-800mm/5.6 at 680mm, manual mode - f/8, 1/800 sec, ISO 250, 580 EX II set at -2 2/3 with B.Beamer

A 1024 px version is available here: http://www.all4mypics.com/albums/use...a-800-4473.jpg

Lovely! The light and the BG are amazing, of course the species looks gorgeous too, I like the perch very much, but I do see it a bit brigh (I am looking at it from a laptop) and over sharpened, the larger file looks much better sharpened. Congratulations, it is always nice to achieve our goals and you did it!

Good compo, BG and colors. Agree you could go back a bit in the sharpening. Looking forward to more!

What a lovely light and BG. The composition works very well for me.

Keep them conning!

Beautiful bird! I like the eye contact and agree on less sharpening. There is a slight halo around the bill. Maybe a bit less contrast and I would put the bird a bit lower in the frame. Thanks for sharing!

The breast/belly seems a little bright, and I wish for more room above and and a tiny bit more at right. Otherwise very well done, quite a beautiful bird indeed!! Excellent BG colours to go with the blue plumage :-)

Beautiful bird! Did you take something out of the background on the LL half of the image? The background looks choppy like it has cloning artifacts, especially when compared to the smoother background of the URC. In any case, Nice job!
Chris

Hi Nikolay,
I see you are enjoying the lens! Very nicely captured and the other recommendations easily corrected.

Thanks to all of you for the comments :)

Ramon, I also think that a bit dark bird would be fine. I applied 0.92 in the middle section of the levels to "close" the light's but is not enough?

Mczink says > Did you take something out of the background on the LL half of the image? The background looks choppy like it has cloning artifacts, especially when compared to the smoother background of the URC?

No, there are no clone outs or other cosmetic changes. Just slight levels, USM, 8% sat and some NR. There are some patterns in the BG which came from the closer stems inbetween the bird and the cart-track, from which the brown nuance came from.

I appreciate the comments :)

Hi Nikolay,
Very nice light and complimentary colors between subject and BG. Good detail as well. I'd be tempted to smooth out some of those patterns from the BG that Chris mentioned. Very nice image.
Steve