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Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

Rainbow Bee-eater

Photographed by

Beatrix Clarke on Mon 10th Oct, 2016 and uploaded on Sun 27th Jan, 2019 .

Resolution

900x675

Viewed

732

33833

Comment

Rainbow Bee Eaters were busily catching bees and often came back to the same stretch of fence line. It was late afternoon with the sun behind me.
This is the first time I have submitted a photograph and I am in secondary school, I welcome all feedback and tips to improve my photo taking skills. I auto toned, cropped and flipped the image in Lightroom CC.

Equipment

Handheld Nikon COOLPIX P610 at 236.5mm 1/250 sec f 6.3 ISO 200

Location

Near Boweya Forest Boweya, Victoria

Keywords

adult

This image is not available for download.

Ian Wilson	2019-01-28 14:55:52	Hi Beatrix, Welcome to BLP! Bird photography is one of the most difficult branches of wildlife photography and it takes most people quite a while to learn how to create a pleasing composition and get all the technical aspects right. So don't be put off if you get some negative feedback here, learn from the feedback and try to apply what you have learned next time you have your camera in hand. This is a nice bird to get in front of your camera and the image has turned out pretty well. One thing about composition that photographers have learned is that placing the bird in the middle of the frame, as here, is not usually the most pleasing composition. It will probably look better placed a bit to the left with more space in front in the direction in which it is looking. Some people will feel that the bird is a bit big in the frame and you could try a composition with the bird a bit smaller. This is only possible of course if you have cropped the original image and have enough space left to adjust the composition. The barbed wire perch is not the most attractive and as a general rule you should try to avoid man-made objects as perches. It is perfectly natural that birds should take advantage of the built environment but most people find it more pleasing to have the bird perched on a nice thin branch, preferably with some character. I notice there is something out of focus over the bird's tail; this is unfortunate and something to watch out for when composing the shot. From a technical point of view the bird looks pretty good with about the right amount of sharpness and not too much digital noise in the background. The colours look about right but a little over-exposed. Over-exposure has the unfortunate consequence that fine detail is usually lost and cannot be recovered by adjusting the brightness in post-processing, especially if you are recording the image in camera as a JPEG file. If possible, you should record the image as a RAW file because it will have a lot more latitude for adjustment and a better chance of recovering detail that may be blown out due to over-exposure. Overall I think this is a good first post and I encourage you to send a few more to the Critique Gallery where you should get some helpful advice on ironing out any little problems. It makes it easier for us to see technical problems if you post your images a bit bigger, ideally 1400 pixels wide or 1050 pixels high. Good luck, Ian
Beatrix Clarke	2019-01-29 18:03:41	--Hi Ian Thankyou very much for critiquing my Rainbow Bee-eater photograph, these are great comments and I will endeavour to put them all into practise. I have updated my camera since this shot and I will take pictures from now on saving them as RAW files. I hadn't considered the manmade elements appearing in my shots but when possible from now on I will choose the more natural setting for the photo. I think that there was some long grass in the foreground and I will remember in future that this can interfere with the finished shot. Once again thankyou for your support and encouragement I look forward to posting some more images in the very near future as I have been very inspired by the amazing photographs on the Birdlife Photography website Kind wishes Beatrix
Glenn Pure	2019-01-29 10:38:10	Welcome Beatrix. I'm delighted to see another new young member and an enthusiast of bird photography. I think Ian has covered the critique well. The main issue that stood out for me was the shot looked a little over-exposed. His advice on using RAW will only work if you camera supports that but I'd encourage you to look into it. One thing Ian didn't mention is that your photo is smaller than our maximum allowed size of 1400 pixels wide by 1050 pixels high - neither of these dimensions can be exceeded but our website will let you know if there's a problem when you try to upload. It's always a good idea to post at the maximum size allowable. However, I don't want to sound negative. The bird's pose is very good, sharpness looks great and the background is excellent. Great work!
Beatrix Clarke	2019-01-29 18:13:49	--Hi Glenn Thankyou for responding to my photograph of the Rainbow Bee-eater. I am really enjoying being inspired by and looking at all the amazing photographs of birds on the Birdlife website, I look forward to learning lots. I have updated my camera since this shot and will now be able to take RAW file images, I hope to be able to correct over exposure using this tool. I will now be aware of uploading my images and take advantage of the maximum size allowed. You have given me lots of confidence to go forward and I look to post images in the near future. Kind wishes Beatrix
Simon Pelling	2019-01-30 21:33:04	Hi Beatrix I note that you have updated your camera since you shot this which will allow you to shoot raw files. You will find the Lightroom program to be a very powerful raw processor and it is worthwhile taking the time to learn it properly. One really good thing with Lightroom is that it is very widely used. This means that there is a vast array of information on various websites to help you learn, covering everything from basic use to advanced functions, often in video form. The only other comment I would make is to note that in this particular shot it looks like (from the EXIF data) that you used the camera in one of its automatic modes (such as the P mode, or one of the scene modes). This means it was most likely operating as a ‘point and shoot’ with the camera doing all the work in terms of aperture, shutter speed and ISO. With your new camera, I recommend that you spend some time learning the ins and outs of settings which allow you more control in your photography, such as Aperture Priority (A), Shutter Priority (S) or Manual (M). To illustrate this, it seems that you took the photo at quite a slow shutter speed (1/250 s) while using the lens at near its longest focal length (ie its longest zoom). Ideally, with your lens extended you need to use a much higher shutter speed, to reduce the chance of the photo being blurred due to movement - both yours and the bird’s. If you use one of the ‘more manual’ modes you can set the shutter speed at a setting you want, and adjust other settings such as ISO to achieve the best exposure. This will also make it easier to minimise things like over-exposure (noted in the comments above). Good luck and I hope to see lots more postings from you. I also encourage you to use our forums if you have questions on any aspect of your photography or your camera. Best wishes Simon
Beatrix Clarke	2019-02-03 13:33:24	--Dear Simon Thankyou for having the time to respond to my photograph, I will most definitely take onboard your advice regarding the Lightroom program and start educating myself from the various online tutorials that you have mentioned. I haven't been very adventurous or confident using my new camera and have probably left it on Auto too much! I have taken quite a number of blurry shots with the lens nearly at longest focal length, I will start adjusting my shutter speed in relation to focal length to begin with and familiarise myself with the ISO and aperture too. Thanking you once again Beatrix

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	95/283 in Critique Gallery
	74/243 of Rainbow Bee-eater
	74/243 of Bee-eaters
	14866/34374 Overall
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