Bent Hummer+Repost

Gallery: AvianPosted August 26, 2011105 views4 comments

Yesterday I was prepared to use a flash but I didn't need to: this bird positioned itself to reflect the morning sunlight very nicely. It had rained heavily the night before so there are plenty of water droplets on the flower too. This flower is of the genus Canna. They're known around here as a "hummingbird magnet". However, this year there does not seem to be many hummingbirds to attract. I had several fruitless early mornings before obtaining this shot and this bird didn't pose for long.

In addition to the iridescence I like the bent body shape shown here. I don't know why the bird bends in such a manner….or how it can do it. (I think "low back pain" whenever I look at this image.) I also like the position of the wings here: they manage to show the wing color and conceal the less interesting white breast. As in my hummer shots of last year, the bird must share the stage with the brightly colored flower. Also, this is a pretty small bird, so even being reasonably close with a 560 mm lens this is a 50% crop and the bird image is not all that large.

All comments most welcome.

1D Mark IV, 400 mm f/5.6, 1.4x TC, hand held: ISO 1250, 1/1000 s, f/11, 0 EV, 8 MP (50% of 16 MP full frame), NR, exposure adjustment, sharpening.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Ron Bielefeld on August 26, 2011 at 6:14 PM

I like this Steve. Good job exposing the reds. Very natural looking. My only very small nit is that the bird's head is a bit softer than the flower parts just in front of it. At least in the larger image it looks that way to me. I might try just a bit more sharpening on bird if this were mine. Overall a very cool shot.

Registered on December 6, 2008, 360 Posts, 7132 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on August 26, 2011 at 9:31 PM

I like your comp here Steve, to my eye the area of the white of the throat and neck seem a bit strange looking kind of like they've been smudged - could be too much nr?

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

Comment posted by Steve Balke on August 26, 2011 at 10:23 PM

Ron and Nate, thank you both so much for examining my image so closely. To give you both a better view of the characteristics that you each mentioned, I'll now post close-up crops of the hummer's head. Image 1 with this comment is the completely unprocessed image. Image 2 below, showing the effects of (very mild) NR, exposure adjustment and sharpening, is the same as the posted processed image.

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on August 26, 2011 at 10:24 PM

Here is Image 2, the processed image.

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments