The Elusive Snowcap

[Doug Brown]

We spent 3 days at Rancho Naturalista while in Costa Rica. This is one of the few places you can find the Snowcap Hummingbird. Unfortunately, we got only one look at this beautiful hummer during the entire trip; it was a brief encounter on our last morning at Naturalista.

Talk about a difficult exposure. The darks are really dark and the whites are blinding, even under overcast skies. They really do earn the name 'Snowcap.' This image is the result of 2 separate RAW processing passes; I almost never do this (one pass for the whites and one for the rest of the bird). I had to use every trick in the book to pull the whites down. I couldn't bring out more detail in the darks without excessive noise; I don't think I could have done much more with the in-camera exposure to balance out whites and darks.

http://birdwhisperer.smugmug.com/photos/536285746_W4ddV-O.jpg

Canon 1D Mark III, 500mm + 1.4x, f/5.6, 1/125, ISO 800, fill flash, tripod

[Randy Stout]

Doug:

Nice capture, and really appreciate the backstory. Nice composition and head angle. Exposure already addressed by yourself.

I might be tempted to blur the leaf in front the the perch, on the right side. His beak is pointed more or less at it. I found myself being drawn to it. There is so much other blurred vegetation because of DOF, that I don't think it will look abnormal .

I like the little hints of purple i the background.

Thanks for sharing Doug.

Randy

[Bruce Enns]

Hi Doug, It looks like you did very well on a very difficult bird.

The remainder of my reply is probably better posted in the Photography Discussion forum, and perhaps it can be moved there.

Your exposure dilemma makes me wonder about the possibility of using exposure bracketing in camera followed by the use of HDR software such as Photomatix (or PS CS4's capabilities) to combine the images into a final product. I realize that this only works easily IF the bird doesn't move between exposures...but the DIII is a fast camera, and you were on a tripod. I also realize that setting up the AEB is a significant extra step when you are trying to get a shot of an elusive subject. I am however pretty sure that you managed more than just this one shot, so an AEB may have been possible.

Is this something that you or anyone you know has attempted?

Cheers!
Bruce

[Ilija Dukovski]

Nicely done, especially that you had essentially a one shot opportunity.
Agree with Randy on the RH leaf, even a vertical crop might do.
It is good to see this bird, taking a photo this good is plain great.

[Ondrej Prosicky]

Super, I like hummingbirds, I like Costa Rica!

[Ramon M. Casares]

I think it looks preety nice given the light condition, ambient is nice althought slightly bussy to my personal taste, still, great comp, detail and colors. Congratulations!

[Stu Bowie]

Doug, looks like you have had plenty of practice in getting the whites correct in the last week. Great job here, on both the "snowcap" and the darker colours. This is sharp, and I like the perch, together with the thick foliage around him. I would maybe take a bit off the bottom.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Doug, Doug!

You really did well here!
I know how difficult it is to render the colors of this bird.

Congrats on a great image of this copito de nieve!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find, I don't remember seeing an image of this species. Exposure control, details and setting work for me.

[Dan Brown]

Great luck Doug! I missed this one also! Good job with the whites, this is a tough situation as you have stated. IMO, white is white and even the naked eye would have trouble seeing detail in this white with the bird in front of you! I like the image as is.

[Maxis Gamez]

Love the habitat and looks very sharp. I keep looking at the purple in the bottom right! I would also remove the glare in the eye and leave one catch light!

[Arthur Morris]

The remainder of my reply is probably better posted in the Photography Discussion forum, and perhaps it can be moved there.

Your exposure dilemma makes me wonder about the possibility of using exposure bracketing in camera followed by the use of HDR software such as Photomatix (or PS CS4's capabilities) to combine the images into a final product. I realize that this only works easily IF the bird doesn't move between exposures...but the DIII is a fast camera, and you were on a tripod. I also realize that setting up the AEB is a significant extra step when you are trying to get a shot of an elusive subject. I am however pretty sure that you managed more than just this one shot, so an AEB may have been possible.

Is this something that you or anyone you know has attempted? Cheers! Bruce

I have tried it. It only works for dead birds. All of the living ones move too much.... Another idea would be to do a Linear Conversion (in Breezebrowser) and then import the cap into the normally converted image.

In any case, you did well with the EXP. I like the o-of leaf as if balances the COMP.

[Doug Brown]

Thanks Artie. I did two Lightroom conversions and imported both into CS4. I then superimposed the massively underexposed snowcap onto the somewhat properly exposed bird.