Bee Eater and poppies

[Giuseppe Varano]

( European ) Bee Eater ( Merops apiaster )

1DIII 600mm on tripod f/8 1/2500 1600 ISO

Thanks for looking, all comments are welcome.

All the best

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Hey Giuseppe, great capture. Looks like you put yourself in a good position for the shot. I like the slightly above the bird angle and I welcome the bit of wing tip blur. However, I think that I would change the crop a bit. I looks like the bird is flying down and toward the right, so I would consider taking some of the area up top out. The colors look just a little flat, so I would think of adding a bit of contrast to the image.

[Maya Raut]

Hi Giuseppe,

Beautiful flight capture. Love the head position with open beak. Nice wing motion blur and BG. But I agree with Miguel about crop and adding contrast. I would also light the image a tad if it were mine.

- Maya

[Doug Brown]

Pretty BG and nice eye contact. I'm sure this was a tricky shot against a varied BG. Far wing position is decent, but the near wing position is less than ideal. There seems to be a fair amount of detail loss on the head; not sure if it's caused by motion blur, NR, or a lack of critical focus.

[Marina Scarr]

You did well on what is obviously a very difficult capture. Love the BG and the far wing looks good.

[Daniel Cadieux]

If the background had been plain then I would have agreed with the comp suggestion, but with the red flowers sprinkling the top I like it as is. I do agree with the near wing position not being ideal, and with the softness on the head. Still an appealing image!

[PhilCook]

Agree regarding cropping a little more from the top, but I find that eye mesmerizing, nice and clear with a catch light, and liking the slightly open beak...tough shots to get perfect, but a lot better than my poor efforts at in flight shots

[Giuseppe Varano]

Thanks everyone for comments and suggestions always appreciated. Take this guys in flight is really a challenge having all what i'd like to have in frame. They fly very fast so composition and dof are always critics because I try to have full frame image with long lenses. Here I was looking for this kind of bg and my set up has been based about it: f/8 was the right aperture to have this kind of soft patterns bg at the right distance to try to freeze an interesting flight pose with an high enough shutter speed of 1/2500 obtainable at 1600 ISO.

[Giuseppe Varano]

Pretty BG and nice eye contact. I'm sure this was a tricky shot against a varied BG. Far wing position is decent, but the near wing position is less than ideal. There seems to be a fair amount of detail loss on the head; not sure if it's caused by motion blur, NR, or a lack of critical focus.

Hi Doug, thanks a lot for your honest critique, i appreciated and i fully agree. The softness on the head has been caused by motion blur given by my movment trying to follow the fast diagonal incoming flight and a slightly lack of critical focus.

[Giuseppe Varano]

If the background had been plain then I would have agreed with the comp suggestion, but with the red flowers sprinkling the top I like it as is. I do agree with the near wing position not being ideal, and with the softness on the head. Still an appealing image!

Hi Daniel, thanks for your support about composition. This is a full frame image and there is margin for a better comp crop but i prefer it as is for the reasons mentioned.

[Ken Watkins]

For me this is a very appealing image , basically because I like the colours. OK it is not perfect as pointed out above, but it does not really harm the overall feel

[Ofer Levy]

As much as I like the colours and BG the lack of sharpness caused by what looks to me as motion blur is a deal breaker.

[Giuseppe Varano]

Thanks guys for looking and your honest critiques, always appreciated.