Rufous Hummingbird

Gallery: AvianPosted May 31, 20172,063 views12 comments

Canon 1DX, 500mm f4 x 1.4 TC, tripod
f5.6, 1/1000, ISO4000

Twilight at Payette Lake, Idaho, May 28.

50% of full frame. Adjustments to Levels, selective sharpening to bird, noise reduction to background.

C & C, please. Thanks for looking.

Comments

12 comments

Comment posted by Wayne Jones on May 31, 2017 at 11:30 PM

Holy Cow! Those colors are fantastic, and the feather detail with the shallow DOF keeps my interest right where it counts. Angle, lighting, pose and background all result in a wonderful image of a beautiful bird.

Registered on April 18, 2007, 953 Posts, 6435 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on May 31, 2017 at 11:56 PM

Nice angle on the hummingbird. Details on the bird look fine. The big white highlight going through the background is a major distraction.

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

Comment posted by Craig Moreau on June 1, 2017 at 10:10 AM

Jim, great colors, pose and perch here, but I have to agree with Keith on the background white highlight.

Registered on April 21, 2015, 64 Posts, 584 Comments

Comment posted by Shirley Freeman on June 1, 2017 at 10:10 AM

Wonderful colors and details in those feathers, Jim! Great DOF, and I love the way he turned his head just slightly. Beautiful! I agree with Keith, that white in the BG is a bit of a distraction, but hey, in nature you don't get to place your subject where you want them, especially these little guys, they don't stay still too long for you to move for a different angle. Still a wonderful shot.

Registered on May 27, 2017, 77 Posts, 844 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on June 1, 2017 at 12:17 PM

Nice perch and pose with a great view of the gorget, Jim. If you're not trying for flight shots of these, they hold pretty still on the perch, so I think you could have gone for lower shutter speed and more dof.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Skip Layman on June 1, 2017 at 7:57 PM

The white in the background has already been mentioned. Other than that, I think this is a great portrait of this little guy.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 558 Posts, 1704 Comments

Comment posted by Matt Shellenberg on June 1, 2017 at 8:35 PM

You did an excellent job capturing those great colors in the gorget, Jim.

Registered on February 6, 2008, 168 Posts, 3118 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Minish on June 1, 2017 at 11:55 PM

Excellent shot, Jim! As mentioned by others, the DOF works very well since the head and neck are obviously the primary subject of this little bird. I especially like how the luminescent colors showed up.

Registered on February 4, 2006, 625 Posts, 3583 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on June 2, 2017 at 2:07 PM

Getting good gorget colors is not that easy because of reflections and refractions of the color but you have done a really good job here. Other issues have been touched on but I wanted to mention how clean this was for iso 4000. Excellent work on the processing.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Thompson on June 2, 2017 at 5:06 PM

Really nice look at the hummer Jim, great angle/pose. The background is a little distracting but I don't know if you can do much about it at this point. ISO 4000...wow! Nice work.

Registered on August 7, 2014, 125 Posts, 2319 Comments

Comment posted by Ed Williams on June 3, 2017 at 1:15 AM

This is just beautiful Jim. Those colors are amazing.

Registered on December 28, 2010, 636 Posts, 3499 Comments

Comment posted by Lori Lafargue on June 7, 2017 at 11:01 PM

This is my 1st official avian critique. gulp. I chose your image, Jim, quite frankly, because I've never seen a Rufous (only Ruby Throats up heah in Bahwston!) and also because of that darn background distraction. The latter has been pointed out to you from every direction...'nuff said. The colors, details, dof and angle of this amazing tiny dancer are phenomenal! I'm so glad you shared. Thanks!

Registered on September 30, 2016, 54 Posts, 59 Comments