Tropical Kingbird

Gallery: AvianPosted January 16, 2013129 views8 comments

1/12/13 El Dorado Park and Wildlife Center, Long Beach, California

D800 Nikkor 200-400mm 400mm f/6.3 ISO 900 1/3200 white balance auto tripod with Wimberley gimbal Manual RAW Processed in CS6 and NIK.

I understand that this species is relatively rare in southern California. It was a very active subject jumping from branch to branch and flying from the tree in loops. Consequently while shooting it I was intensely focused on the focus and seeking shots with no intervening branches. I did not realize I got the shot with the berry in his mouth until I processed it.

Comments welcome

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on January 16, 2013 at 11:55 AM

Nice vagrant; nice action. This is an AZ specialty that occurs each year in the same few spots.

The color is off on this - too cyan or maybe too green. There's also some strange vertical streaking in the sky when viewed in the red channel only.

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

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on January 16, 2013 at 1:17 PM

Patrick: Cool bird and nice to catch it with food in the mouth. I took a look at the larger version. I'm guessing this is a large crop. The detail in the plumage is lacking. The color of the sky looks off to me. I don't know the bird well enough to know if the entire image color is off or if it was something specific in processing of the sky.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on January 16, 2013 at 1:17 PM

Really like the berry 'action' and tongue visible there Patrick..
Looks good with the solid blue BG, and mostly yellow bird

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on January 16, 2013 at 4:02 PM

Has to be a small crop. I definitely like the novelty of the berry. The sky is too cyan, for sure. I would go back and reprocess this, were it mine.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Tjie Poo on January 16, 2013 at 4:12 PM

Nice capture Patrick, love the tongue sticking out. The sky and composition look OK to me.

Registered on December 4, 2012, 51 Posts, 511 Comments

Comment posted by Paul Wolf on January 16, 2013 at 5:03 PM

I do like the berry in the mouth action. That separates this from the run-of-the-mill static bird shots. But (sorry) I find the noise level on the bird itself to be way too much for my liking. For me, it detracts from the overall quality of the image, I´m afraid. If you do reprocess, you might be able to bring down the exposure to reduce the noise, but maybe not much you can do given the high ISO.

Registered on December 31, 2012, 13 Posts, 44 Comments

Comment posted by Marsel van Oosten on January 17, 2013 at 5:58 AM

I'm guessing this is a very serious crop, otherwise I don't understand why there is so much noise at only ISO 900. Or did you use the tonal contrast filter in NIK?

Registered on March 9, 2004, 285 Posts, 2277 Comments

Comment posted by Robert Bunch on January 17, 2013 at 1:52 PM

Good behavioral shot. Goes well with Howards shot next door. I agree the IQ is lacking in the large version.

Registered on May 18, 2004, 124 Posts, 2503 Comments