Red Bishop

[Vincent Grafhorst]

Southern Red Bishop (Euplectes Orix), breeding male.
Phakalane, Botswana

It is very tricky to correclty expose these birds due to the combination of very bright orange and very dark black feathers. It took 3 RAW conversions and a lot of PS blending work to get to this result.

Canon 40D, EF100-400 @ 390mm
1/800sec @ f/10, iso 640 (I actually tried to get a good flight shot... did not manage... yet)
HH, Full frame


Vincent Grafhorst
Gaborone
Botswana
http://www.khwaiphotography.com
vincent@khwaiphotography.com

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Vincent I love the image and the bird but you seem to have the same problem as me, birds turn their back to you, do we use the wrong deodorant?:)

How is Botswana this time of year?

[Arthur Morris]

Vert nicely done. Greta job on the head angle. Wish that you could have gotten a bit higher to move the horizon line lower. Have you tried de-SATing the the reds and yellows 10 points or so right out of the box? That might save you lots of PS work.
later and love, artie

ps: Is that a shadow from a branch on the side of the face/neck (or just some dark feathers)?

[Vincent Grafhorst]

Arthur I did try desaturating the bright colours in the RAW stage and this does work exposure wise, but I felt too much colour was 'lost' that way. This bird is really bright! The shadow is indeed of a branch (well seen!)

Chris, Botswana is beautiful anytime of year! Thanks for your comment, but I intentionally posted a photo of the colourful back, since the front is all black.

Cheers,

Vincent

[Arthur Morris]

Vincent, I thought that might have been the case. Do you live or work in Botswana? Have you posted your giraffe avatar image here? If not, I would love to see it.

later and love, artie

[Axel Hildebrandt]

What a beautiful bird. Great perch, pose, light and details. Artie's suggestion is great. Desaturating the reds/oranges a few points might make the postprocessing much easier. If the white spot on the perch is not part of the plant, I might remove it (looks like bird dropping?).

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Gorgeous little bird Vincent and beautiful detail. Great suggestions have already been made by Artie. thanks for sharing this beauty !!

[Jim Poor]

Really neat looking bird

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

I Iove the pose,light and details!!!

[Blake Shadle]

Great work on this one! I love the background, and the details that you captured are outstanding.

[David Steele]

I don't think I've seen a better image of a Red Bishop, Vincent.

[Cindy Cone]

Beautiful image of a beautiful species.