The most photographed bird in Africa?

This is a Lilac-breasted Roller. Not only are they stunners to look at, they are quite common and cooperative as photographic subjects - hence the title of this post. I never got sick of photographing them. This one taken in South Africa (Timbavati Private Reserve) late in the day. The bird was perched low in a bush right next to the track and didn't fly when we stopped for a photo or 10. Crop is about a third of the frame area.

Thank you for looking and for any comments you are kind enough to share.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/1250 sec, f8, ISO 800. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Modest NR applied to bird and stronger to background. Bird only sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool, remove Gaussian Blur: 0.4 pixels at 50%) after final size reduction.

You really do get fantastic image quality out of your 80d and 100-400. Bird looks fantastic. How close were you? I am not sure about the crop. I feel it is a little tight on the right but not sure if adding more room would help or if it would be better to cut off a bit of the bird and start the crop from where the back starts to angle towards the head.

Isaac Grant said:

You really do get fantastic image quality out of your 80d and 100-400. Bird looks fantastic. How close were you? I am not sure about the crop. I feel it is a little tight on the right but not sure if adding more room would help or if it would be better to cut off a bit of the bird and start the crop from where the back starts to angle towards the head.

Click to expand...

Thanks Isaac. We were pretty close but my memory fails me on just how far. I could not fit the whole bird in the frame (landscape format) at the distance we were at and I'd zoomed to 400mm for this as I wanted a portrait. That will give you some idea. I also have some shots zoomed back and may get to post them too - showing the whole bird. As for crop, I mainly selected this one to show off the plumage colour but understand your point. As for the IQ with my 80D and lens, I noticed a significant improvement when I upgraded from the old 100-400 to the Mark II. The camera wasn't working too hard here but is certainly better than my old 700D on noise when pushed.

Great colors on this bird. The detail is nice as well.

Hi Glenn,
This bird was my "spark bird" that started me down this wonderful path of bird photography. I took a picture of an LBR on my first trip to Tanzania with a point and shoot.I had no real interest in birds at that time but when I got home I took the SD down to WalMart and had the picture printed up as an 8 x 10 and I just loved it. So...I went online and Googled "bird photography" and the rest is history!!
Anyway, back to your image.
I love the detail, IQ and light.
I am OK with your comp because the point of this image is to show off the fantastic detail.
I would clone out the lower catchlight if mine.
Gail

Nice work, Glenn. I am loving all the feather detail you have captured. A very colorful bird nicely shown. Thank you for sharing.

Wonderful portrait with exquisite detail. Makes me eager to start my trip.

Glenn, sweet colors and details, I would suggest deleting the bottom catchlight as Gail suggested.

-Tim

Beautiful image Glenn! I like the sharpness, details, composition and colorful bird.