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Little Bee-eater
Another African bird, possibly the most common bee-eater species in Southern Africa? We saw quite a few of this species. This one is from the Okavango Delta. The bird was among foliage in a small waterway that we drove across. I have toned down the light OOF reed running from the left edge to the bird's neck as it was rather distracting. Also lifted shadows on the bird's eye. Crop is about 30% of the frame pixels.
Technical: Canon 80D with EF 100-400 MkII at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/500 sec, f7.1, ISO 640. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Very light NR applied to bird and stronger NR to background. Sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool) after final size reduction.
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BPN Limited Member
Love those soft feathers and colors. Perfect shot.
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I like this a lot. I would edit out the single tan colored glass-like item directly behind the bird's head (and in the middle beneath the perch). Keep up the nice work!
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Very nice I agree with Jay about the background grass. As well could you extract a touch more red colour out of that eye.They are very red in brighter light. I really like that background treatment as well.
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Lovely image, beautiful bird... nice colors and detail, the background works well, nice sized perch for the bird. Thank you for sharing, Glenn.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
www.amazinglight.smugmug.com
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Nice detail on the bird. Good composition as well.
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Great looking perch and well processed. Details looks good especially for a big crop. Great look at the colors and eye here. BG is a big busy but not a deal breaker by any means. TFS
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BPN Member
Glenn, super shot, nice details and colors, like the environment. Not a big fan of this crop ratio, but that's just my preference.
-Tim
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Originally Posted by
Ian McLachlan
Very nice I agree with Jay about the background grass. As well could you extract a touch more red colour out of that eye.They are very red in brighter light. I really like that background treatment as well.
Yes, the photographer's curse: a stick growing out of the head. Fixed below and the eye lifted a bit more. Thank you all for your comments and for viewing - I greatly appreciate it. Hope you like the repost!
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Macro and Flora Moderator
Very nice image indeed, I like it very much, I have to say I too would have gone for 3:2 if the image background wasn't too uncooperative. You have some nice detail there, I think this is one of those images you can keep tinkering with, I would suggest you play around with HSL in DPP4 - have a look at the yellow and orange, I have a sneaky feeling you may get slightly better detail in the highlights on the belly close to the wing.
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BPN Member
Another great looking frame Glen. The repost makes so much difference. Its so good to get the advice and learn on here. And I must say, you are posting some great images. Lovely colours and detail on the bird. Great pose and HA. I love the natural looking feel you have achieved.
Will
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Originally Posted by
Jonathan Ashton
, I would suggest you play around with HSL in DPP4 - have a look at the yellow and orange, I have a sneaky feeling you may get slightly better detail in the highlights on the belly close to the wing.
Thanks Jonathan but what is HSL? Are you referring to the lighting adjustments Highlight, Shadows (not sure what L is). If so, I do tweak these to get a suitable shot for finishing in PSE where I make localised adjustments. In DPP, I aim to preserve all the detail that I will need in the final shot and get the overall lighting looking roughly right before playing locally. In this case, I agree they may look better if I pulled them back a touch.
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Lifetime Member
Hi Glenn,
Repost addresses all my issues although I am with Jonathan and would go for a slightly different crop 6 x 4.
"L" is for luminance" "S" is saturation and "H" is for hue,
Gail
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Macro and Flora Moderator
Glenn will get back asap not home at the moment and I am awaiting new glasses so can't see terribly well old ones broken
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Publisher
Another beautiful bird in soft light. Sharp. Good job on the repost. But, you need to learn to use off-centered aF points :) Start practicing! This bird belonged on the left side of the original frame, not in the middle.
with love, artie
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Thank you all for your help with this. I will have another go at it and repost - hopefully later today - if I don't get diverted. I will look into shifting AF points Artie but my camera is away with Canon at the moment so I haven't been out at all. Just as well as BPN has been taking quite a bit more time than I expected on top of everything else.
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OK, sorry for delay - had a few other things to deal with. Here is a new version with those highlights on the bird pulled back as, on review, there was some clipping there that I wasn't careful enough to watch for initially. Unfortunately, there isn't any significant extra detail in those parts in the RAW so it probably hasn't helped a lot. I've also done a 3:2 crop. I think I like that better than the original so thanks for suggesting it Gail and Jonathan.
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