Purple Sunbird

[Ihtisham Kabir]

Taken in Purbachol, Bangladesh, on 10Mar-2016. These sunbirds are the closest we have around here to hummingbirds. 1/4000 sec/f5.6/ISO 800/Canon 1DM4+500mm f4II - handheld. Did some basic processing in photoshop to bring out the colours of the bird; burned in the leaves a small amount. C/C welcome. Many thanks for looking. Ihtisham

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Ihtisham, I like your comp here, and what a lovely pose showing the wing display. I like the blue iridescence too. Im seeing some noise on the wing, and Im wondering if this was under exposed and the noise has come out in your pp work. For ISO 800, you shouldnt have noise with the 1D Mark IV, as I have one, and I dont experience noise at ISO 800. I ask this, as your previous post had noise too. Can you post the original please, so we can see your exposure before any pp work.

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Ihtisham,
A beautiful bird and I like the composition. Bird looks soft with noise. Was this a big crop?
Allen

[Ihtisham Kabir]

Hi Stu and Allen, many thanks for commenting on the photograph. Hmmm. Is my processing broken, I wonder. I would like very much to have the original looked at. It was a good sized crop but not gigantic (the numbers are on my other "work computer."). Will post the original after I am back from a trip in the next 3 days. Thanks again. Ihtisham

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the high key and the hummer's pose. The IQ isn't great as Stu mentioned, the bird shows noise and is a bit soft, was it a huge crop or underexposed? Maybe you can post a 100% crop from RAW without processing. I also wish the leaves were in focus and a bit fresher to make the image prettier

TFS

[David Salem]

This looks like a classic example of a very common problem when you are shooting into a sky or white sky background. A shot like this should have been exposed "solely" for the subject. Understanding how to judge the meter in the camera is important. Most shots like this should be exposed 1 to 1-1/3 stops over what the cameras meter shows.
This means that if you have your "highlight alert" "ON", your sky should be almost completely blinking but the dark bird should be exposed perfectly. It also makes a difference on how sharp the image is too. It doesn't look to under exposed but a bit noisy do to bringing up the darks.
Besides that, the the bird looks great with a cool down wings pose and some awesome colors. TFS

[Ihtisham Kabir]

Hi David, many thanks for your comment. It was probably underexposed (I meter manually but must have mis-guessed the correct exposure.) With film, I was always erring on the side of overexposure but with digital I am more concerned about blown highlights and would rather underexpose than overexpose. Nevertheless another 1/2 stop would have helped. Ihtisham