Masked Trogon, female

Gallery: AvianPosted September 22, 2010203 views20 comments

Here's a shot from our most recent trip to Ecuador in June. I photographed this female trogon and some other birds from the balcony of one of our lodge rooms. It gave me the opportunity to shoot at eye level with some birds. This is cropped to about 80% of FF, noise reduction on the background.

MkIII 500F4 1/30 F6.3 iso 800, evaluative metering at 0, 580ex fill flash at -1.3, Gitzo tripod

Comments

20 comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on September 22, 2010 at 2:08 PM

Nate,

I was hoping to see some Trogon's when I went down to Central America but didn't luck out. This is a great picture showing habitat and the flash is quite stuble. Well done.

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by Sally King on September 22, 2010 at 2:38 PM

I think it is a fantastic image of this beautiful bird. The soft flash brings out the colors nicely. Nice pose on her part too.

Registered on December 2, 2008, 416 Posts, 4450 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on September 22, 2010 at 3:51 PM

Very nice! Flash is well controlled. Good composition and nice close view.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by KC Choo on September 22, 2010 at 5:34 PM

This is a beauty - bird and your capture, Nate! Trogons are one of my favourite forest birds - thanks for showing this one.

Registered on November 15, 2004, 519 Posts, 8278 Comments

Comment posted by Ian Mason on September 22, 2010 at 6:36 PM

That's superb! What a comical bird.

Registered on December 14, 2005, 399 Posts, 2305 Comments

Comment posted by David Haynes on September 22, 2010 at 6:48 PM

What a coool looking bird Nate. Never seen one before. Love the perch, sharpness and colors. The head angle is really nice. Might be a little bit tight on the left side but I see there is a distracting looking branch that maybe you were trying to get rid of. Really like this one Nate. Thanks for sharing!

Registered on February 20, 2010, 110 Posts, 1511 Comments

Comment posted by Bryan Hix on September 22, 2010 at 7:23 PM

Sweet! This one looks well fed.

Hope the weather was good down there.

Registered on June 13, 2008, 117 Posts, 755 Comments

Comment posted by Angela McCain on September 22, 2010 at 10:15 PM

Nice image of this interesting bird. Fill flash looks good and natural. Quite sharp for 1/30s. I wish there had been a little more DOF. The tail is great and I would like to see the detail there.

Registered on April 19, 2009, 367 Posts, 3589 Comments

Comment posted by Simon Bennett on September 23, 2010 at 5:18 AM

Very interesting bird, well captured in what seems like very low light. Good flash work and I like the verdant setting.

Registered on February 4, 2007, 350 Posts, 4614 Comments

Comment posted by May Haga on September 23, 2010 at 10:43 AM

Cool bird, grat catpure.
May

Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments

Comment posted by Monica Siri on September 23, 2010 at 10:53 AM

Wonderful capture, Nate. The detail and colors are super.

Registered on September 20, 2009, 132 Posts, 3764 Comments

Comment posted by Ronnie Gaubert on September 23, 2010 at 12:38 PM

Great looking species Nate. Good that you were able to get eye level. Shooting in the rain forrest must be very difficult.
Ronnie

Registered on November 1, 2003, 810 Posts, 3495 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on September 23, 2010 at 3:40 PM

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Angela, I agree it would have been nice to get the tail in focus as well. The problem was that if I stopped down to F8 or F9 I feel I would have had to increase my iso because about 1/30 is usually the slowest I like to shoot in order to get sharp images. If I increase my iso to 1250 or higher the noise becomes quite a bit bigger problem so I decided to leave it at 6.3 and just have the tail go out of focus.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on September 23, 2010 at 4:39 PM

excellent, Nate. nice subtle use of flash. I like the interesting look on the bird's face. more DOF for the tail would have been nice, but like you say, you were pretty limited here.

When you shoot at very slow shutter speeds like this, do you use Live View/Mirror Lockup?

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on September 23, 2010 at 5:00 PM

Brian, thanks, no I typically don't use live view/mirror lockup which is the reason I like to keep the shutter speed at about 1/25 or higher. I do use a very large and stable old aluminum Gitzo tripod.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on September 23, 2010 at 8:54 PM

The flash looks great Nate, I love her pose and colors.

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Hackley on September 24, 2010 at 3:09 AM

That's different, eye level to eye level, how interesting. I like the feather detail on this and the colors of the trogon, well done Nate, sounds like a great trip.

Registered on September 17, 2009, 302 Posts, 5535 Comments

Comment posted by Rob Drummond on September 24, 2010 at 6:14 AM

Love trogons and this one's no exception - well done Nate. Nice to see a trogon shot that is not looking vertically

cheers
Rob

Registered on November 8, 2003, 617 Posts, 8267 Comments

Comment posted by Geoffrey Baker on September 24, 2010 at 7:31 PM

Wow! what a beautiful bird.
The colours and detail you've captured are lovely

Well done.

Geoff.

Registered on August 20, 2010, 192 Posts, 980 Comments

Comment posted by Ken Archer on September 26, 2010 at 5:48 AM

Almost missed this gal Nate, I don't know how I over-looked this one earlier. This is a Sweet One for sure.

Ken Archer

Registered on October 28, 2004, 222 Posts, 6683 Comments