Blue Winged Pitta

[Tsechien]

Another (potentially RGB histogram harmful :p ) colourful sought after bird in these parts.

Blue Winged Pitta
Winter breeding migrant, northern Peninsula Malaysia
http://www.pbase.com/tsechien/image/100643811/original.jpg



No tweaking of the colours this time, auto WB, Just a bit cropped for composition and overall mild non selecive USM applied in CS2 and downsized for web.

D300, AFS 600mm f4, 1.4X TC on a Kirk Window Mount
1/40s f/6.3 ISO 800, ambient light, no flash used bcos of the highly reflective blue feathers (which turn out really fake looking even with the slightest fill flash)

C&C welcome

chien

[Aristotle Georgiou]

Great capture of a beautiful bird. Like the composition, background and superb colors.

[Fernando Cerra]

Perfect colors, background, incredible species !

[carole wiley]

It looks a bit dark to me and the light urh corner is a distraction. I would like to see more head detail. Nice pose, sharp, beautiful bird. I like the perch.

[Glenn Bartley]

Really cool bird. Was he coming in to be fed those worms? I know some pitta's in Ecuador have been conditioned to do so.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree the blacks in the face are too dark, and to me the eye needs a bit of work (the speckled catchlights look odd). Keep them coming, Chien...I really enjoy viewing these new species (for me anyhow) you present us :-)

[Grady Weed]

Daniel and Carole have covered the most obvious and important items to look at and then fix. I would think the effort needed to work on this one is worth it. Please keep clicking and posting. BPN is the best site on the web for critiques and learning.

[Juan Aragonés]

The blacks on the face needs some additional work but is just a minor detail. The overall image quality is excelent. the worms in the beak are the ice on the cake. Please keep them coming :-)

[Tsechien]

Thank you everybody for the valuable feedback and I am glad that you are enjoying seeing some of the south east asian species here.

Glenn - This bird was bringing the worms to feed 3 hungry chicks in the nest and had gathered them from the ground nearby. They nest right on the ground and the parents would first hang on 2 regular low perches to check that the coast was clear before plunging down to the nest. Feeding birds / baiting bird to get them near is rarely if ever practised in these parts and is frowned upon by the bird watching (note the distinction from bird photography :cool: ) community.

chien