Carmine Beeater

[Ken Watkins]

Taken in Matusadona National Park, Zimbabwe, 20th September 2010

EOS 1D MkIV

500mm F4 IS hand held from open game viewing vehicle

F5.6, ISO 800, 1/2500, EV + 0.67

Large crop 20% of original.

Toned down reds

[Randy Stout]

Ken:

I like the basic comp, angle of bird and perch, works well. Spider web, catchlight.
The IQ has suffered a bit from the crop, and on my monitor there is some smearing of the reds, esp. under the black eye patch.
Possibly from the jpeg conversion/compression.

In a perfect world, slightly lower shooting angle and not the sharp cut off end on the lower stub off perch.

One colorful guy!

Randy

[Marc Mol]

True colours here Ken, well depicted, considering the large crop.
TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Colours look natural and well exposed Ken. I like the comp and pose, and there's not much you can do about the angle. I still need one of these guys in my files.

[Marina Scarr]

I'd be just happy seeing one of these little guys. Love the pose you have here and the colors look awesome and the perch works well and doesn't take anything away from this capture.

[Sid Garige]

That is the most colorful bird I have seen Ken. Holding up pretty good for a 20% crop.

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice pose and has handled the big crop well, Ken. Reprocessing to try and recover texture in the blocked up reds on the cheek may be worthwhile.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good comp and colours. Good details for the crop! I might try to recover a bit of the shadow on the undertail coverts if noise is not too intrusive. I also wish the bird had not turned its head away a bit.

[Pieter de Waal]

Nice capture Ken, you are doing well handholding that large lens. Good IQ considering the large crop and colours are accurate which is not allways easy with the reds on this species.

[Mark Young]

The red is really vibrant in this species! I imagine these birds would look outstanding when seen in flight.

[Ken Watkins]

Thanks for all of the comments and ideas for improvement, I'll take another look later.

Mark,

There are probably some nice flight shots on this site, the nesting sights in river banks provide good oppurtunities, but I have yet to get a good one. Here is a rather nice one

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...hlight=carmine

[Craig Brelsford]

Many good comments so far. With your camera, does ISO 800 put you in the "possibly noisy" range? (I know it does with my Nikon D300.) The reason I ask is, why is a speed of 1/2500 of a second necessary for a perching bird? Why not a lower ISO and a slower shutter speed? Maybe you were set up for a takeoff shot and the takeoff shot didn't pan out. But when I come across perching birds that could give me a good takeoff shot, I make sure I get a few shots using an arrangement more suited to a still bird. This is not to say that your specs weren't optimal for a sitting bird; perhaps you think they were; I'd like some enlightenment; I'm less familiar with Canon than I am with Nikon.

[Ken Watkins]

Craig,

I find the noise level at ISO 800 quite acceptable if handled well in processing. The major reason for lack of detail is the size of the crop , and not increasing the EV value.

I prefer to have a fast shutter speed available as I hand hold, sometimes it works sometiimes it does not.

[Mark Young]

Thanks for the link Ken. Hope you get a good flight shot soon.