White Fronted Bee Eater

[Rachel Hollander]

Another of my infrequent ventures into avian photography. Taken in South Luangwa N. P., Zambia on my recent trip.

Canon 7D2
100-400 II @ 248mm
1/500
f5.6
ISO 800
HH from safari vehicle, cropped to about 80% of full frame from right and top, levels, curves, removed color cast on perch, sharpened in CCPS.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Brian Desjardins]

Hi Rachel, What a gorgeous looking bird, beautiful colors, nice details and sharpness, Thanks for sharing !!

[Bill Dix]

Hi Rachael. What a striking bird. Great detail and pose. Because the brightly colored bird dominates the image so nicely, the fairly small-in-frame works well; but I could imagine another version with a bit taken off top and left.

[Doug Brown]

Lovely bird with incredible color. I might go with a slightly tighter crop, and I'd consider toning down the perch a bit.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Rachel, always great seeing you posting our feathered friends here. Lovely angled pose, tack sharp, and the colours are spot on. I feel your comp works well as is. I also like the colour of the BG.

I visited a White Fronted Bee Eater colony yesterday, so will post mine later in the week.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Brian, Bill, Doug and Stu for the comments and suggestions. Stu - I'm looking forward to seeing your images from the colony.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Mike Poole]

Nice to see you over this side of the forum Rachel!

Lovely bird giving us a great near parallel pose in relation to the camera.

Ideally I'd like the bird to be placed a touch higher in the frame, and I too would look at toning the perch down a bit.

Everything else spot on.

Mike

[Geoff Newhouse]

A very nice image. Great detail in the bird. My only nitpick is the perch is too dominant for the size of the bird and distracts somewhat from the subject. Otherwise great image overall. Background is perfect.

TFS
Geoff

[keith mitchell]

Rachel I like the bleached perch and agree maybe a bit larger in the frame might look good ,what really catches my eye is the lovely colour and natural detail you have got especially on the head,very nice indeed.

Keith.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image. Very nice pose, beautiful colors, great details and lovely BG.
Superb composition.
If mine I will just darken the perch slightly. Not a big deal.

Regards,
Satish.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thank you Mike, Geoff, Keith and Satish, much appreciated.

[Bill Nuttall]

I keep coming back to this image Rachel, lovely colours on the bird and an attractive image. I also like the space around the bird as when I see full images I do not like to see them too tight

My only negative would be the perch, OK DOF is what you get and it is shallow the nearer you get to the subject especially with f5.6, but the drop off in DOF at the bottom of the twig seems just too "quick" and sits just a little uncomfortably especially when contrasted against the sharpness of the tail ... and this area seems to focus your attention more than it should

I am not a fan of pushing sharpening too much as I always feel that the structure of the feathers should be shown in the image, especially if they are soft - maybe this image is a little too sharpe in parts for me, (although since joining the Forum I have started to sharpen my images more!!).

Beautiful colours and always a great bird to see, (Bee-eaters that is)

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Bill, Not much sharpening applied but I can revisit it.

Rachel

[David Salem]

Beautiful frame Rachel. Nice pose, colors and details in this image and I like the complementary BG colors. Nice capture! Sharpening looks good over here.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks David, much appreciated.