Adult Red-Bearded Bee-Eater

16 August 2009, Kemensah, Selangor

We came across a juvenile Red-Bearded Bee-Eater during one of our  earlier trips to Kemensah so we were always hoping to see the adult bird.  We decided to try a new trail to see what we could find and as we were going up a slope, my son spotted a bird flying in from behind a clump of bamboo, it was this adult  male Red-Bearded Bee-Eater (Nyctyornis amictus). Quite a sizeable bird compared to the non-bearded species.

Notes on Photography: Lately I have been shooting using Manual settings and I find that it yields better results than Aperture or Shutter Priority since I have more control over the shutter speed. I need to achieve at least 1/125s  with my lens ( even with VR on) to get anything useable. This bird was about 50ft away from us.

For these shots I experimented using the max EV of +5 which enabled me to shoot at higher shutter speeds (between 250-400)   f8, iso 400, VR off, on tripod , RAW format, TTL flash with extender. I’ve noticed a tremendous jump in clarity when freezing motion becomes  that much easier even when shooting under the canopy. The Velvet-Fronted Nuthatch ( a constantly moving bird)   onwards had been shot using these settings. Thanks to my brother Rosman for the settings. I find that the setting doesn’t work very well when a Teleconverter is used since you lose too much light (at least 1 f stop with a 1.4x TC). The TC plays havoc with the contrast, colours, noise and  the overall sharpness of the RAW image. Try it and let me know if it works.