Fan-tailed Cuckoo

[Colin Driscoll]

Got a pleasant surprise today to have a Fan-tailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis) move through my patch (basically my front yard on the edge of Lake Macquarie).
Search suggests this might be the first of this species to be posted on BPN.
I first saw it in heavy shade then followed it and eventually it landed on the perfect perch with the sun just off the best angle.
The BG was poor so I grabbed some shots then slowly moved to a full sky BG but the bird would not give me a head turn and then flew off.
1DXII 600mm F/4L III 1.4xIII 840mm HH
1/500 f8 iso800 +0.3ev (mistake not corrected after photos taken in the shade- must think faster!)
Had to work hard to get this somewhat presentable as the BG was horrible black blotches against the sky.
Masked the bird and perch and subdued the BG. Cropped from horizontal. Dropped the exposure on the bird to bring out the chest richness. Light sharpen.
Always appreciate your comments/observations/suggestions

[Jonathan Ashton]

Colin I appreciate this was a tricky capture but I am afraid the image looks hammered to me, I get the impression the highlights were blown and possibly something going wrong with downsizing and or sharpening. The background looks as though it has been tampered with.

[John Mack]

Sounds like a nice encounter. The bird looks odd to me. Not the way it looks but the detail on it.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Neat bird indeed - congratulations on the exciting encounter! Good perch. I agree with the fellas above though, the IQ and processing are not up to par. I can appreciate the conditions were difficult. What did the file look like before processing? Just curious on what the BG looked like before - perhaps some help can be provided...

[Colin Driscoll]

Here it is, the un-worked file from the raw. I'm pretty embarrassed about the OP :e3 but any advice would be appreciated. I found that one of the shots I took in the deep shade shows the bird off much better so will put it in a new post. Thanks.

[gail bisson]

Do not be embarrassed by any of your posts Colin! We have all posted "dogs" but those are often the images that teach us the most!
I would leave the BG alone. It looks way better than your redo and looks quite natural and rather dramatic.
The big problem is that the head is soft because of DOF issue and you were overexposed (especially the perch). I think that the overexposure can be addressed by reducing exposure, lifting shadows, reducing highlights and doing a luminosity mask
But the softness in the head is hard to fix in PP.
Also, is this a big crop?
I would be happy to work on this with the RAW if you want to send it to me but I think this is an image where it will be the memory of the encounter that will bring the most pleasure!!

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks Gail, much appreciated. It has been a learning experience and hopefully my subsequent post has done the bird justice!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Colin, I agree with Gail - no need to be embarrassed! I'm actually surprised by the BG pre-work as it looks better than I thought it would. I know a 1 stop wider aperture is not much but try photographing wide-open in such situations as it does help smooth out BGs. Yes, finding shade to photograph birds once the sun is harsh is a good idea. Not much to with the soft head. Are you comfortable moving focus points around? Once you get used to it this becomes second nature to move it when the head moves of center. Anyhow, keep it up - no matter the results its great times outdoors and the times the images come out great it is such satisfaction :-)

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks Daniel, yes I am comfortable moving focus points but it's not quite second nature yet.