Swallow Tailed Bee-eater

[Ken Watkins]

Taken in Kwando concession Northern Botswana 4th July 2009

An if only picture not quite sharp and a little too far away

EOS 1D MkIII

500mm F4 IS hand-held

F 7.1/ ISO400, 1/2000 ev +1/3rd

[Harshad Barve]

Nice bird, lovely pose, lokks like someone diving from plane
agreed on sharpness, but not much to worry
I am loving this as presented
TFS

[Bob Malbon]

Pull up some detail and light in the eye area and the image is super!! Bob

[Brian Zwiebel]

Ken, What a great bird in an unusual pose. Must be about impossible to catch this one in flight. A tad more sharpness and a bit more light on the eye is all that is missing. On the sharpness, this would seem to be a depth of field issue as things look pretty good back by the rump but sharpness falls off toward the face.

Good Shooting!

BZ

[Daniel Cadieux]

Dynamite pose and colours, but there is just too much subject motion blur on the face for me. As posted it could use a crop from the left.

[Mital Patel]

excellent one and superb timing. superb close. i know how hard to catch them flying closely with motion. so very well done on this one.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The pose is pretty cool, it looks as if the critical focus is on the tail. I'm not sure if selective sharpening of the head would work but might be worth a try.

[Ken Watkins]

My main reason for posting this was to show just how close you can get to a great capture without actually succeeding! It took of suddely and moved at great speed, I am just annoyed that I did not get the AF point at the right end.
No amount of additonal sharpening that I have tried will work, next time?

[Chris van Rooyen]

So close! May I suggest you use 1/3200 next time? I find its just enough to freeze the little guys in flight