blue cheeked bee-eater

[ramesh anantharaman]

equipment:

Canon EOS 40D, 500mm, f/4, 1.4x t.c.

properties:

700mm, f/8, 1/1000 sec, iso-250

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Ramesh, liked the perch, the pose, and the background a lot. Bird is awesome too. But it looks a bit oversharpened to me. Did you do some cloning on the twig? I see some things there near the lower left corner. A little bit overexposure will also help.

For this sized images, (after resizing), I select the bird using quick selection. Use the refine-edge (contract feature) to exclude the bird's edges. There is a nice tutorial in the education resources forum. Then apply USM on the selection in the range 200-to-215/ 0.2-to-0.25. I keep sharpness 4 in DPP during raw conversion. It takes less than 5 minutes to do this. Feel free to ask me a question via PM if you have.

Thx for sharing

[Mital Patel]

ramesh fantastic perch and light you have captured. i still wish for a less sharpness would be better. also the colors looks dull here were this taken in overcast day ?

head turn towards you is really good but in this image case it would have been nice to litter far off to that would have made the light brighten up the eye line and may have added good interest over to the expression.
though this is my personal though on this it may differ from experts and seniors here.

i would give vot to KD's suggestion on sharpness and processing.

[ramesh anantharaman]

i am reposting the image after starting from scratch from the raw with all suggestions inc. I hope this works. Kausthubh and Mital pls do let me know.

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Ramesh,
Whilst this may be a little oversharpened and yes, I do see some oddities in the LLC, I love the overall feel of the image. The colours are beautiful and the mood is serene.
Am I seeing a slight halo around the bill?
Best,
Nicki

[ramesh anantharaman]

Nicki,
are you refering to the main image or the repost?

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Ramesh, sorry - I think that we were typing at the same time!! I was refering to the original image. Sharpening looks a whole lot better to me now.
Best,
Nicki

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Ramesh, repost looks much better. But I still feel that the back feathers look a tad oversharpened. Your orig image much be much sharper than what I am used to with my lenses :-) You can do less sharpening in USM than what I suggested. Mine was just a general guideline. Glad I could help.

KD

[Harshad Barve]

Ramesh
Repost is big improvement , lovely pose and killer BG here
TFS

[Kiran Poonacha]

repost looks good Ramesh, just some cloning marks on the twig, you can correct it easily, nice head turn, light and BG.. congrats...

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the perch, look-back pose and BG. Sharpness in the repost looks better but I liked the colors in the original post better. Maybe a bit more room at the right to get the bird out of the center. I would also try to remove the clone marks. Keep them coming!