Ruby-topaz hummingbird

[Roy Priest]

This was taken recently at Tobago. Just a brown hummer until the light hits it right.
Nikon D500, ISO 800, 1/1250 @ F4.5, 500mm on tripod
Really interested in the comments on this one

[Alex Becker]

Hi Roy, Nice look at a great looking bird. In my opinion, this shot is noisier than I would expect and some areas appear oversharpened, in particular the OOF wings. Was this a large crop? Thank you for sharing

[Isaac Grant]

Such a beautiful bird. Very nice pose and background. There are 2 issues that are hurting the image quality here. Firstly the photo is badly underexposed. I suspect that you had to raise the shadows quite a bit which is what introduced so much noise which is the 2nd issue. If possible I would rework the shot from the beginning and see if there is something you can do about the noise. Here is a quick rework where I lifted the exposure to about where i think it should be. Also applied NR to the bird and background, but because it is so noisy I was not able to get rid of it. This is just to give an idea of about what the exposure should be on the bird and how the background can be cleaned up as well. Unfortunately, lifting the exposure further accentuated the noise now.