Yellow-bellied Sunbird

[Jon Thornton]

Nikon D300, TC-14E teleconverter, Nikon 600mm f/4 VR, tripod.
ISO 400, 1/400th sec, f/11.

[David Hemmings]

Wow, what a beautiful species. Great perch and pose. I would run a little nr on the bg. What in the world is that curly thing?

[Jon Thornton]

David, I think the curly thing is a spent flower head, but I'm not sure.

I'm not really into BG NR at the moment unless of course the noise shows up in prints. I reserve my right to change my mind about this in the future (I do this all the time).

[Grace Scalzo]

Beautiful image, Jon. Agree about the need for nr, and I'd remove the second catchlight.

[Jon Thornton]

Grace, I seem to be suffering from "second catchlight blindness" at the moment. I agree, it should be removed. See previous comment about BG NR though.

[Grace Scalzo]

Jon, I'm confused. While I agree that the noise might not be a problem when you print, why not make your web presentations as good as they can be and get rid of it? Maybe you have a reason that I'm not aware of.

[Jon Thornton]

Grace, I don't mind a bit of noise. The noise shows that the image was produced using a digital camera.

Each internet photo forum has its own culture and places emphasis on different aspects of image quality. This forum is big on BG NR, the removal of second catchlights, leaving space in front of the subject and taming highlights.

I am not above taking advice. I just like to make my own decisions from time to time. For the moment, I choose not to remove BG noise.

[Stu Bowie]

Jon, well exposed colours, and I like the pose. He stands out nicely against the OOG BG. Comp wise, I would maybe change this to a vertical crop. Toning down the perch a tad would work too.

[Jon Thornton]

Stuart, although I don't like any of your suggestions, I thank you for taking the time to comment.

[Rob Drummond]

Love the composition, exposure and detail Jon - nice one.

cheers
Rob

[Ramon M. Casares]

IMO light was a bit too harsh, I like the comp and perch, species is lovely, I think that you should rework the yellows as they look a bit oversaturated I also agree with some suggestions made above like removing noise from the BG and removing the second catchlight. Congratulations.