Green Hermit and Heliconia danielsiana

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

One more image taken during my last workshop in Costa Rica last May.
This hummingbird visits this flower in the wild so I opted to use it and happily the bird did not dissapointed us!
This is a Heliconia danielsiana, one of our 38 heliconia species and is visited by several species of hummingbirds for its sweet nectar and for tanagers and honeycreepers for its fruit.

For this one I used

1D Mark IV
300f/4@f/13
ISO 320
SS 1/125sec.
Four speedlites.
Tripod

Thanks for looking :S3:

[adrian dancy]

Image design is superb. It would have been nice if the yellow flower was more visible. But you can only work with what is presented. I am not familiar with this species and its plumage but the bird's head seems to suffer IQ wise and perhaps in an ideal world you would have had more light on the head but I stand to be corrected on that one. Over all a very pleasing image.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Image design is superb. It would have been nice if the yellow flower was more visible. But you can only work with what is presented. I am not familiar with this species and its plumage but the bird's head seems to suffer IQ wise and perhaps in an ideal world you would have had more light on the head but I stand to be corrected on that one. Over all a very pleasing image.
Hello Adrian
Thanks a ton for commenting on my work. I was looking at the RAW file and it looks good. I believe is the jpg compression what makes the image suffer. More light on the head would have make it look unnatural, well at least to my eye which is use to the dark environments inside the rain forest :)
I am attaching a tight crop of the head. Thanks for looking.

[christopher galeski]

very nice Juan,nice BG,that plant is something else magic,very nice composition.well done.

[Greg Oakley]

Another wonderful hummer image, Juan Carlos!

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice one JC! Super sharp and beautiful contents! I love the sharpness on the 2nd pic (specially the beak) but you're right - the feathers look unnatural on that one for some reason. Well done on this one!

[David Salem]

Very nice frame with a cool pose and a unique flower. The BG you chose looks great too. The Hummer is obviously very sharp but I do see what Adrian sees in it looking not that sharp.
The bird itself looks a bit dark on my monitor. You might consider selectively increasing the exposure on the bird, adding a few points of saturation, then sharpen. Love the frame.

[Karl Egressy]

Beauty shot, Juan. The plant is just as great looking as the bird.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image. Spectacular placement of bird in the frame.Beautiful plant. Superb composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Marina Scarr]

Love the plant and the pose on the hummer, but find the image a bit dark. I think I'd do a bit of dodging on the bird.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Thanks guys for your nice comments! :)

[adrian dancy]

Hi Juan
Thanks for posting a closer crop. I have had the opportunity to see other images of this bird. The head on other images that I have seen is much more subdued and not as bright as I would expect. The head tones with your image are closer to 'natural' than I was giving credit for (I am glad my critique came with a caveat:)). The buff eye stripe for instance has a greying highlight recovery look but this is closer to the bird's natural plumage characteristic than I imagined! There is something still not quite right and I cannot put my finger on it. It is still a superb image.

[Fernando Cerra]

Hermosisima foto Juan Carlos para ponerse en un cuadro y disfrutarla todos los dias, saludos !

[supreet.sahoo]

Absolutely fab image here mate! Much has been said already and all I can say is that i would like to visit your place one day to make images like this, fabulous!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Thanks guys for your nice comments!