Rainbow BeeEater...

[Don Railton]

I have been trying to capture a good shot of one of these beautiful birds this summer and I simply wondered what others thought of this effort... I really want a BIF shot but swinging the 500 around HH trying to track these sporty little fellars has been a bit tough. I don't have a gimbal head yet..

Thanks for looking

DON

MK 4 & 500 + 1.4 TC |1250 sec @ F5.6|Mono pod|

[Randy Stout]

Don:

The lighting here makes for an interesting photo. Very good separation from the background, sharp. The eye shows very well.

I would consider toning down the brightest areas of the perch so they don't compete with him quite so much.

A little more DOF would have been nice so that the perch wasn't quite so blurred as it projects towards us.

The image has some noise. What ISO were you shooting at?

I might also consider a modest crop from the top, an a small one from the left to decenter him a bit more.

Cheers

Randy

[Don Railton]

Thanks Randy

ISO was 800, and I agree it has too much noise so i rechecked the raw and it exists there also. Not sure why, I expect the MK4 not to do that at 800 especially... In the resubmission I have performed a bit of noise reduction in PS along with the cropping as suggested.

DON

[Randy Stout]

Don:

Better in the repost.

Regarding the noise, did you have to bring up the exposure secondary to underexposure in the original?

That certainly can increase the noise in the final version.

Cheers

Randy

[Bill Dix]

What a gorgeous bird. Dramatic lighting helps him stand out from the bg and emphasizes the colors. Repost de-emphasizes the perch, although I might have taken just a bit more off the top. Congrats on getting this beautiful species, perched or otherwise.