Keel-billed Toucan stretched out

[Bill Holsten]

This is nearly the full frame with a bit removed from top and bottom to emphasize the stretch. Photographed last month in northern Costa Rica on workshop with Greg Basco and Doug Brown.

EOS 1D Mark IV, 500mm, 1/300", f/7.1, ISO 800, fill flash, tripod

Comments and critique welcome and encouraged.

Bill

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Stunning setup, Bill. There's nothing not to love about this one. Excellent pose, bg, perch, details, exposure... Especially love the eye contact.
How was the bird attracted to your perch?

[Frank Schauf]

Excellent details, love the perch, great pose, very nice background, and nice colors.

[PhilCook]

My bottom jaw just hit the desk !..absolutely outstanding in every respect........curious about the perch, is it natural or pimped up a little as the small Bromeliad plants either side look placed.

[Shawn Zierman]

Yowser! The perch is almost as great as the subject.
You definitely got your money's worth on this image. Great shot!

[christopher galeski]

Beautiful image,great colors,nice perch and BG,sharp with great details.well done.

[mohammad reza shahab]

great pose,perch and very nice background, Excellent details.

[Grace Scalzo]

Wonderful! Great colors, perch, and vegetation. Love this one!

[Bill Dix]

Just stunning. Pose and perch superb, fill flash work is excellent, as are exposure and comp. Colors to die for. When I quickly skimmed Sidharth's comment above, I thought it said "How was the bird attached to the perch." That almost seemed fitting.

[Karl Egressy]

Great looking bird on a very nice perch, Bill Love the colours, pose and composition.

[gail bisson]

I love the blue feet and that way the vine is wrapped around the branch. At first I thought it was a snake.
Beautiful image and agree with all the above comments,
Gail

[Daniel Cadieux]

Oh yeah, that is a highly successful image Bill! Well done on all counts here...subject, perch, BG, techs and processing. Two thumbs way up from me!!

[Bill Holsten]

The perch branch, that you see, was fastened to and extended laterally out about 8' from a heavy vertical pole embedded in the ground. A bunch of ripe bananas was attached to the vertical pole at the point where it intersected the perch branch. Although this was about 12' off the ground, it was at eye level for the photographers who were standing on an adjacent deck (under cover). The challenge was to make your image just as the birds flew in to the perch and before they dove into the ripe bananas. We probably photographed 15 or more species of fruitivors(sp?) (toucans, aracaris, parrots, parakeets, oropendolas, thrushes, woodpeckers, honeycreepers, tanagers, etc) on this perch. I don't know if the bromeliads were rooted on the perch or not, although I thought they were.

[Melissa Groo]

Just exquisite! That intent pose, the shots of color all over, the twisty perch, the expert techs. Doesn't get much better than this.

[David Salem]

Awesome!! The colors, detail and beautiful perch make for a simply stunning shot. Very well done.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Bill. We must have been standing next to each other that morning - I have an image (not yet processed) that looks very similar to this. :S3: This bird gave you a great pose on an interesting perch. Very nice comp and sharpness. You might consider backing off the saturation just a bit. Overall, an excellent image!

[Doug Brown]

Everything came together for you on this one Bill! Congrats on a fine image!

[Richard Unsworth]

Lovely Keel billed frame, notorious for those difficult blacks.

[vishaljadhav]

Bill,
Thanks for letting know the setup , i heard it before from a friend Vikram who is on this forum and visited the place bit before you, the bromeiads looks ground in there .

THis is a superb execution with classical control on the colors, its always a issue with so many colors to blow the brighter once however this has been perfectly done, lovely image here.

[Bill Holsten]

Thanks to all of you who viewed this image and especially to those who took the time to comment.

Bill

[Corey Hayes]

Love this shot!

[Katie Rupp]

This may be the best Keel-billed Toucan image I've seen so far, Bill! I love the perch, the pose, the perfect exposure and the composition. Big Congrats on this one and also for the Orange-cheeked Parakeet which was also stunning and the photoshop work on the bill is very impressive.

Sounds like it was a good trip this year; sorry I couldn't make it.

Regards,

Katie

[vikram potdar]

Hi Bill, Wonderful image. The unique perch adds grace to the image. Though it is a set up it is not easy to make good images and capture perfect poses of the birds and also to avoid human elements. This has come out very nicely especially the yellow part as it tends to get overexposed in such conditions when you use fill flash.