European Roller

[Richard Unsworth]

Spent 6 days in the blazing Alentejo heat to get some meaningful shots of this beautiful bird.
Rollers are critically endangered here in Portugal. Observing them at close quarters is all but impossible
on this occassion AI was able to get some shots as the bird left a distant fence post on route to its nest.
Fully aware of my prescence they move swiftly past at speed.

The shot was processed in DPP AND CS6 , no adjustments were made other than the crop, NR and sharpening.
The sun was behind and to the left.

1/3200 f7.1 ISO 640 Manual Expose HH a1 Servo expand centre.
Canon 7D 100-400

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Richard, nice colors. critical focus, looks like, was on primaries on far wing. with focus on face, it would have been better but hard to do that. I usually use all af points for sky BG and hope for best. If mine, I'd definitely crop some from bottom.

always nice to have difficult birds in the files.

[Richard Unsworth]

Thanks

just checked , top focus point from centre 5 hit the tail. Have another where 3 fron five hit bird centrally. They are so fast and swerve parallel at the last split second!
You mentioned using all points have you used with the 7D?
thx re crop will def try that

please chime in everyone with your great suggestions for setup to get that top shot.

Scene - watching bird from afar
bird leaves far perch and flys directly towards, swerving left in last seconds.
BG at run start is grass/farm machinery changing abruptly to solid blue sky
what thoughts to ease absolute focussed capture

[Mike Milicia]

Congrats on getting a rare species in flight and with prey!

The near wing position doesn't work for me here, especially with the front of the wing so close to the eye ... the flat position makes the wing kind of disappear.

[PhilCook]

The things we endure for a photo ...kudos for the huge effort Richard....like the grasshopper in beak

Here's a little PS technique that may help make the focus appear to be more on the head...you may already be doing this ?...or it can be done using a layer mask adjusting brush strength as you paint back in the sharpness adjustment

When you sharpen use the quick selection tool to sharpen just the head only just lightly , then keeping that same selection and add to it again with the quick selection tool to select the head and more of the body, then apply more sharpen....do same again to select the complete bird and apply more sharpen. In effect what this does is apply more rounds of sharpen to the head than other parts of the body thererby making the head appear the sharpest area. A bit like above image, but this re post is going to look bad as it's over sharpened now, better to do it on the original.

As far as getting closer, hard to tell without knowing the terrain, but it seems you know where the nest is and it seems to possibly be habitual for it landing on the fence post. So maybe set up a hide near the fence post, and maybe also use a bait like worms or grasshoppers to lure the bird to the post and entice it to stay longer. Something I did a while back to lure Robins in to a spot and try to capture them in flight was to stick some meal worms on a length of fine stiff wire and so the worms were obvious to the passing bird. You can always clone out the wire/worms afterwards if need be.....maybe something to consider trying....see image above of worms on a wire to entice a Robin

[Satish Ranadive]

Richard,
These birds can recognize you if visit this area regularly. Place a another perch, a rather big one so that you can prefocus the lens on the tip of perch.He or she will start using this perch shortly.
Then you can prefocous the perch tip before they land up on perch or leave the perch.This is my experience. Beside that ,they will allow you to come near also without fear or stress.I did not use the hide.
Very nice frame,love it.

Regards,
Satish.

[Richard Unsworth]

Thanks for the setup ideas all but unfortunately no go's for this location.
The birds are in a protected area/research area so not allowed.
They are very rare here with certainly no more than 100-200 pairs countrywide, and hats probably a large over estimate.
From my obs. there are about 6-8 individuals in the area at this place. Occassional one my see them on wires at the roadside.
The use of pesticides and wanton slaughters in Oman and West Africa are having a devastating impact on numbers ICN Red - near Threatened, but virtually gone from here.

I will reread the excellent posts on BPN re BIF settings for the 7D and try again today.

Thanks for the sharpening info Phil, I do indeed already use this technique.
Mike, agree wing position no where near optimal, will continue to take bursts as they pass. As I said I have some more frames which are
much better. Indeed it is entirely possible I will get one with either a snake or mouse today!

Satish atm the birds seem very wary indeed, but I think you are correct re recognition as they seem to be making more approaches in my prescence