A Slash of red

[PhilCook]

From last week while holidaying on the houseboat, this one was unexpected while taking a walk inland of the river. Delicate little bird living in some of Australia's harshest environments, a few hundred meters away from the rivers edge of inland Australia and it's virtual desert country.

Sadly much of the weather experienced while away was cold, grey and bleak with some much needed rain thrown in for good measure.

Canon 7D + 500 f4 + 1.4 x TC.....700mm, f 6.3, 1/800, ISO 800, no flash, manual exposure, no tripod....hand held under dull light and grey skies....cropped, selective sharpen and backdrop noise reduction....3 or 4 faint oof twigs removed from the backdrop for uniformity, maybe not essential but done anyway, possibly a bit too uniform grey now ?

Noticing after posting it looks somewhat flat and in need of more black I think....ih ?

[David Salem]

Wow Phil, thats a killer shot. What a beautiful little bird. Thats what I love about this site, I can come home from work, get a bite to eat, then look at great pictures of beautiful birds from almost every spot on the globe. Very cool.
This shot has a very painterly quality to it and the subdued light really made this one. Not sure what it looked like but the black and whites look great. Very Nice

[Robert Holguin]

Great shot of a lovely looking bird.
Great pose, nice background, and great details.
Well done.

[Don Railton]

hi Phil

I would be pretty happy with this just as it is..! Quite beautiful..

Don

[PhilCook]

Thanks for looking and sorry about the typo title....obviously it should read " splash ".....needs a p

[Derek Willcox]

nice one phil great photo just me but i think blacks need to go a bit darker also iam guessing its a red caped

[Joe Senzatimore]

Looks great here as well. A beautiful image , all around.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very good shot Phil, I like the exposure the pose and the fine detail, I wonder what it looked like with out the cloning you referred to.
The image looks good.... but I have to agree there is quite a bit of uniform grey "not doing much".

[gail bisson]

What is the name of this bird?
He is so pretty- hard to not like such a colorful bird.
Techs are great and HH as well!!
BG is OK but maybe the OOF branches you cloned out may have helped disrupt the grey.
Gail
PS Our houseboat trip on the Murray was an adventure/disaster. Grounded the houseboat twice on a sandbar. The sudden stop sent my elderly father flying into and through the screen door and tumbling down to the deck. Lots of bruises and bumps but, to his credit, he didn't drop the glass of scotch that was in his hand!:bg3:
My mom was swimming with our 6 year old when the biggest snake we ever saw came swimming along past them. They were unaware of the snake but hubby and I were on the deck and calmly ( although I was dying to scream and carry on) asked Mom to swim to the boat with Gilly so "I could give her some water". They swam to the boat blissfully unaware of what had passed them by.
And the air conditioner broke in 38-40C heat wave!! Anyway...I digress and didn't mean to hijack the thread.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Phil, excellent exposure on difficult colours, but they all pop nicely. Love the 'roundness of this species, and Im fine with the BG. I would just take a touch off the top.

[PhilCook]

What is the name of this bird?
He is so pretty- hard to not like such a colorful bird.
Techs are great and HH as well!!
BG is OK but maybe the OOF branches you cloned out may have helped disrupt the grey.
Gail
PS Our houseboat trip on the Murray was an adventure/disaster. Grounded the houseboat twice on a sandbar. The sudden stop sent my elderly father flying into and through the screen door and tumbling down to the deck. Lots of bruises and bumps but, to his credit, he didn't drop the glass of scotch that was in his hand!:bg3:
My mom was swimming with our 6 year old when the biggest snake we ever saw came swimming along past them. They were unaware of the snake but hubby and I were on the deck and calmly ( although I was dying to scream and carry on) asked Mom to swim to the boat with Gilly so "I could give her some water". They swam to the boat blissfully unaware of what had passed them by.
And the air conditioner broke in 38-40C heat wave!! Anyway...I digress and didn't mean to hijack the thread.

Apologies....this bird is called " Timmy " .......lol........nah, seriously though, it's a Red-capped Robin.

A shame about your houseboat trip, not something I would do in the height of Summer

[PhilCook]

nice one phil great photo just me but i think blacks need to go a bit darker also iam guessing its a red caped

Thanks Derek, I figured the blacks looked a bit wishy washy and needed darkening....a lot seems to depend on time of day I edit/view images on my monitor, day time viewed images look different than when viewed at night due I guess to ambient light through my window

[PhilCook]

Very good shot Phil, I like the exposure the pose and the fine detail, I wonder what it looked like with out the cloning you referred to.
The image looks good.... but I have to agree there is quite a bit of uniform grey "not doing much".


I agree Jonathon, I've already deleted the original out of camera file { Red-cap images are a reasonably common in the right region }...but this one was clicked a second after so quite similar, but without the background cloning and smoothing, I think the original is a case of over editing now I think about it.

[Mike Milicia]

Nice pose here and techs look great!

Far prefer the natural BG ... adds a hint of habitat, adds some interest, and nothing intersects with the bird so not distracting at all for me.

[Joe Murphy]

Fantastic looking little bird Phil, it came out very well for a grey day shot.

[Satish Ranadive]

Extremely beautiful looking bird.Superb image with nice reds,beautiful BG. Very nice composition.
Love the frame.

Regards,
Satish.

[Karl Egressy]

A really nice image, Phil. In this case I also prefer the original background. It is a very nice bird and you dealt with the hard to expose red very well.

[adrian dancy]

First ...isn't the bird just a delightful beauty. Nice work with the bird. I'm easy with the background but prefer the habitat. I prefer the blacks in second image.