Collared Aracari... A Greek Armor..

[Rajesh Pandit]

I was fortunate enough to get this angle, with both eyes pointed towards my lens....

[Doug Brown]

Definitely an interesting perspective! And some incredible eyes too! Speaking of the eyes, they are not as sharp as I'd like them to be; maximum focus appears to be on the tail feathers. Also I'd go with a crop that eliminates the legs. I'll be leading a workshop in Costa Rica in a couple of weeks, and your photo is a nice reminder of good things to come!

When posting, please try to include your EXIF data along with your images. Thanks!

[Marina Scarr]

Hello Rajesh:

If you would please post what settings you use with the photographs you pos,t it would be most helpful for us when commenting and critiquing.

This is a very interesting and impressive-looking bird and obviously not too easy to photograph from this head on angle. It appears that your primary focus is on the bird's wing feathers rather than on the bird's eyes. In this image, the eyes do not appear sharp. With bird photography, the most important part of a bird to have sharp is the eye(s). In this particular case, you could have focused on your eye and then recomposed your image. You also have a lot of light shining down on that huge beak,

You have a lovely clean, green background (BG) here but I am seeing a few dust spots up above the bird which can be easily removed.

Thank you for posting and looking forward to more images of unique birds from you!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Nice bird. Lovely clean BG and stare. Sharpness is on back. I wish the eyes were more in focus. A bit less room on top could improve this image.

[Rajesh Pandit]

Hi Doug, Marina and Juan. Thanks for your comments.

I keep on forgetting to mention EXIF. I will keep it in mind for my future posts.

Here is EXIF for this image.

Canon 5D MarkII.
Canon 500/F4.
ISO - 400.
Exposure Bias - 0 ev.
F - 8.
Shutter Speed - 1/80.
Flash fired.

And yes focus was on the back so eyes are not that sharp.

Marina, There is more light on the beak and dust spots above the bird. But i am really not good at PP and don't know how to remove it. Trying to learn it.

Doug, Costa Rica is really a wonderful place for birds. I enjoyed a lot out there.

Rajesh.