Cloud forest jewels

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Taken on the highlands of CR.

Canon 30D
Canon 35-350@350mm
ISO 800
AV
Tripod
f/5.6
1/640sec.
0 Exp. comp.



(Fiery-throated Hummingbird)

[Fabs Forns]

Very nice to get the full iridescence of the feathers. Nice and sharp and well composed, a keeper!

[Doug Brown]

Nice pose and great iridescence. Like the BG too. The catchlight seems a little big and the eye seems too black. Also there is a fine halo around the bird. Here's a repost with quite a few changes:

1. A black levels adjustment
2. A contrast boost
3. Some selective sharpening
4. Halo removal
5. A little burning of the perch
6. Made the catchlight smaller

How do you like the repost?

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Juan Carlos!
Such a sweet bird - that irridescence is incredible...
To me the biggest difference that Doug's repost has make is in the eye - the smaller catchlight really works for me. Also the halo removal - Doug, how did you do this??
Here's to more humming birds!!
Best,
Nicki

[Greg Basco]

Juan Carlos, really nice composition on this one, and the sharpness and lighting look good too. I agree with Nicki that the Photoshop work on the eye was the negative on this picture, so Doug's repost was a big improvement in that regard. The feather detail looks a little noisy; you might have chosen ISO 400 and still done well with sharpness at 1/320th for printing bigger, but that's a fairly minor detail. Overall, I think it's really nice portrait of the fiery-throated.

Cheers,
Greg

[Stu Bowie]

Lovely pose, and love the colours in this. What a smooth OOF BG too. Well captured Juan.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Nice pose and great iridescence. Like the BG too. The catchlight seems a little big and the eye seems too black. Also there is a fine halo around the bird. Here's a repost with quite a few changes:

1. A black levels adjustment
2. A contrast boost
3. Some selective sharpening
4. Halo removal
5. A little burning of the perch
6. Made the catch light smaller

How do you like the repost?

Hi everyone!

I was going to mention the catchlight but decided not to do it and wait to see what others think about it.

I can see that many members here have very good eye, that's great.

I'm with Nicki about ''how do you remove the halo?''

I am attaching an untouched crop from the RAW so you can compare and see that I, instead of making the catch light big, I tried to make it small.

[Greg Basco]

Juan Carlos, I would have left the natural catchlight as is -- looks fine to me. If you wanted to work on the eye, I suppose you could then darken the rest as you did before.

Cheers,
Greg

[Doug Brown]

Here's how I would have treated this eye. You didn't have a catchlight as much as you had a reflection of the sky. I wouldn't try to turn that into a catchlight, which normally results from the sun or a flash. I would lighten the reflection a little and burn the dark areas of the eye, but not too much. A totally black eye looks fake. Here's a repost.

With regard to the halo, it is probably from sharpening. The best way to deal with that is to prevent it from happening in the first place. There are several good ways to sharpen birds. I normally carefully select the bird with the quick select tool and the lasso. I copy the selection to its own layer, and then sharpen. I fixed your halo by cloning the green BG over the halo.

[Arthur Morris]

Excellent work and explanation (immediately above) by Doug. A lovely image on all counts with the iridescent feathers very sweet. I have not seen this species; is it restricted to CR?

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Excellent work and explanation (immediately above) by Doug. A lovely image on all counts with the iridescent feathers very sweet. I have not seen this species; is it restricted to CR?
Hi Arthur.

Yes, this bird is endemic to CR and western Panama.

[Arthur Morris]

Thank you sir. Is western Panama anywhere near the canal?

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Thank you sir. Is western Panama anywhere near the canal?
Arthur, this bird likes the highlands, in fact, from 4600ft to around 6600ft, and after breeding can descend as low as 2500ft but I don't know how high is the area around the canal, I don't think he may like that humid weather down there but one thing is for sure, birds don't know how to read!

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the info JC. I will be in Panama with a group and with Linda Robbins this coming AUG at Canopy Lodge and Canopy Tower.