Panama to JFK

[Arthur Morris]

After a great seven days in Panama with a group of 15 in all, I flew to Orlando and continued on the NYC for a few days at JBWR....

This Keel-billed Toucan was photographed from atop Panama Tower with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens and the 1.4X II TC. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/200 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. Extensive branches removed on the left side of the frame.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

ps: Off to Nickerson Beach in a few....

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

Nice looking bird with a funny pose!!!
I Iike the composition,colors and the bg!

[Aidan Briggs]

Hey Artie, welcome back. I love the exposure control, BG, and perch. Awesome colors, and I love the massive bill. I wish for a bit more of a head turn towards you, but I still love this one.

P.S. I am about to finalize the last part of the NANPA submission right now.

[Ben Egbert]

Fantastic image.

[Isak Pretorius]

What an attractive bird! The composition is very pleasing with the open space left and diagonal branch. The soft colours are great!

[Krijn Trimbos]

Gorgeous bird, excellent HA, great pose and good perch. Lovely BG as well. If this were mine I would bump the midtone contrast just a tiny bit more while being careful not to lose any detail in the blacks and the highlit yellow part. Otherwise excellent!

[Norm Dulak]

Artie:

I agree with the others that this is another most attractive image. But since you have said that we should not be shy, and that all comments are welcome, I offer the following constructive comments.

The head angle and pose of this beautiful bird are both excellent. And the cloning to remove extensive branches has undoubtably improved the image. But the nature of the bird, with its color and brightness extremes, posed problems that I think you have not completely overcome.

You applied +2/3 compensation in an effort to bring out the dark feather detail, but your effort was not entirely successful; on my calibrated Apple Cinema monitor there is little feather definition on the lower region of the breast and the tail. Furthermore, as a result of the effort to capture the dark feather detail, the left portion of the upper, yellow part of the breast appears blown out and devoid of detail on my monitor.

Perhaps nothing further can be done with such color and brightness extremes in the subject, but I would go back to the RAW image, select the troublesome regions, and apply the relevant Photoshop tools in an effort to improve the image further.

Of course the best approach would have been to do compensation bracketing to accurately capture the light and dark regions separately, and to then combine the results in an HDR image.

But thanks for another pleasing image.

Norm Dulak

[Connie Mier]

Exquisite and I don't mind the HA as is, gives more attention to the colorful beak. I do notice a red flare or glow where the yellow and black breast feathers meet.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Welcome back Maestro. :)

I feel if the light had been from the right instead of left that would have been ideal. However, I would most certainly not cared myself as this is a really great looking bird and have taken the shot too. Those upright branches keep my eyes looking back at the bird instead of wondering around the frame. Look forward to more images in the days to come.

[manuel grosselet]

Artie,

I am learning, and I like the pic of course. I dream to have one half as good as is that. One question why can't you use a flash with extender on this pictures. To have still more bright light on the left Handside of the birds (better wingside)..and compensated a bit the bright light on the other side..May be to far for that, but the yellow respond very well with flashlight. Let me know...

[Ilija Dukovski]

I just love these birds, one of the reasons to go to Central America over and over again...
Not an easy black and yellow combination, the light direction too. The HA in combination with the branch
makes great composition, the colors of the open bill are excellent. Given the habitat of the bird, you've got a fantastic clean BG. This is one of those "wish it was mine"...

[Kiran Poonacha]

welcome back....guruji

Wow... Loved this, great bird to have in the kitty Guru, loved the colours and BG looks great, Congrats...

waiting for more...

[Dr.Pranay Rao Juvvadi]

These are such beautiful birds. I like the open beak, perch and BG. The tail looks a bit soft to me, and I would have preferred a more sideways HA.

[Harshad Barve]

This is awesome shot Guruji, what a species ,
Lovely open beak, perch and BG
TFS

[Arthur Morris]

The tail looks a bit soft to me, and I would have preferred a more sideways HA.

I too would have preferrred a bit more of a head turn. As for the tail being a bit soft, you are correct; for 26 years I have been working wide open or close to it and focusing on the bird's eye, so I am not about to change now :) In order to have the tail sharp here I would have had to gone to a much higher ISO and used a much slower shutter speed.

[Arthur Morris]

First off, thanks all for your kind words. They are greatly appreciated.


One question why can't you use a flash with extender on this pictures. To have still more bright light on the left Handside of the birds (better wingside)..and compensated a bit the bright light on the other side..May be to far for that, but the yellow respond very well with flashlight. Let me know...

Here's the story: I did have the flash with the Better Beamer on the lens. I misjudged the situation and set the flash to 1:1 in Manual mode. I was so excited to have a chance to photograph this treetop species at eye level that I forgot to check the histogram. After the fact, I noted that the images with the flash looked over-flashed and had a few flashing highlights. With this image, the flash failed to fire. I am pretty usre that the bright images will look fine after processing and will likely show more detail in the shaded blacks but I have not had time to process any yet...

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Norm,

re:

I agree with the others that this is another most attractive image. But since you have said that we should not be shy, and that all comments are welcome, I offer the following constructive comments.

I do try to encourage folks to share their honest opinions and oftern learn a ton by posting images here and carefully considering the comments and suggestions. When I feel that folks are wrong however, I will let them know :)

You applied +2/3 compensation in an effort to bring out the dark feather detail...

That statement is not accurate: I added 2/3 of a stop of light to move the histogram to the far right. With some of the blacks shaded and others sunlit, I knew that there was no hope of having detail in the shaded blacks.

but your effort was not entirely successful; on my calibrated Apple Cinema monitor there is little feather definition on the lower region of the breast and the tail.

That would be as expected; it is unrealistic to hope to show detail in shaded black areas while maintaining detail in sunlit areas of bright yellow.

Furthermore, as a result of the effort to capture the dark feather detail, the left portion of the upper, yellow part of the breast appears blown out and devoid of detail on my monitor.

Though the TIFF shows no clipping at all, the JPEG does show clipping in the areas you mention. I prepare my JPEGs generically and at times the compression causes an unwanted increase in contrast. With the TIFF I have tried to balance getting detail in the sunlit yellows while revealing detail in other areas.

Perhaps nothing further can be done with such color and brightness extremes in the subject, but I would go back to the RAW image, select the troublesome regions, and apply the relevant Photoshop tools in an effort to improve the image further.

For the most part I did that on my original optimization. And to artificially lighten the shaded blacks would yield a muddy extremely noisy look.

Of course the best approach would have been to do compensation bracketing to accurately capture the light and dark regions separately, and to then combine the results in an HDR image.

Norm, please do not take this personally but that suggestion has no basis in reality. HDR may be great for landscapes but simply does not work with birds or wildlife as the latter are living, breathing creatures that are alway in motion (except perhaps while they are sleeping). I have tried what you suggested and the images never ever register. A possiblitly along the lines of what you suggest would be to capture several different exposures and then use a series of Quick Masks to borrow and improt the unusually light and dark areas but this would require that the bird remained fairly still for a bit. This bird was in constant motion.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[paul leverington]

What an incredible animal. I just can't get over that bill. It's fun trying to guess what mother nature had in mind with the colors and design of the markings on it. And I noticed it's serrated--wonder what thats all about as their direction would tend to let something move outward rather than inward. Must help break up whatever type of food they eat.

Paul

[Norm Dulak]

Hi Norm,

re:

I agree with the others that this is another most attractive image. But since you have said that we should not be shy, and that all comments are welcome, I offer the following constructive comments.

I do try to encourage folks to share their honest opinions and oftern learn a ton by posting images here and carefully considering the comments and suggestions. When I feel that folks are wrong however, I will let them know :)

You applied +2/3 compensation in an effort to bring out the dark feather detail...

That statement is not accurate: I added 2/3 of a stop of light to move the histogram to the far right. With some of the blacks shaded and others sunlit, I knew that there was no hope of having detail in the shaded blacks.

but your effort was not entirely successful; on my calibrated Apple Cinema monitor there is little feather definition on the lower region of the breast and the tail.

That would be as expected; it is unrealistic to hope to show detail in shaded black areas while maintaining detail in sunlit areas of bright yellow.

Furthermore, as a result of the effort to capture the dark feather detail, the left portion of the upper, yellow part of the breast appears blown out and devoid of detail on my monitor.

Though the TIFF shows no clipping at all, the JPEG does show clipping in the areas you mention. I prepare my JPEGs generically and at times the compression causes an unwanted increase in contrast. With the TIFF I have tried to balance getting detail in the sunlit yellows while revealing detail in other areas.

Perhaps nothing further can be done with such color and brightness extremes in the subject, but I would go back to the RAW image, select the troublesome regions, and apply the relevant Photoshop tools in an effort to improve the image further.

For the most part I did that on my original optimization. And to artificially lighten the shaded blacks would yield a muddy extremely noisy look.

Of course the best approach would have been to do compensation bracketing to accurately capture the light and dark regions separately, and to then combine the results in an HDR image.

Norm, please do not take this personally but that suggestion has no basis in reality. HDR may be great for landscapes but simply does not work with birds or wildlife as the latter are living, breathing creatures that are alway in motion (except perhaps while they are sleeping). I have tried what you suggested and the images never ever register. A possiblitly along the lines of what you suggest would be to capture several different exposures and then use a series of Quick Masks to borrow and improt the unusually light and dark areas but this would require that the bird remained fairly still for a bit. This bird was in constant motion.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Artie:

I'm quoting everything you have said in reply to my comments, not with the expectation that others will read it all again, but to show the substantial effort you've made to answer my concerns.

I pointed to problems that I thought were wrong with your toucan image that might have been corrected during exposure or subsequently in Photoshop, but it appears that I was wrong in light of your experience in trying to overcome such problems and difficulties you encountered in conversion to JPEG for posting.

Thanks for your thoughtful and detailed reply!

Norm Dulak

[Morkel Erasmus]

Artie - to me this is a wonderful image. I love the way the light fell, and that you got the bird in the clear. The colours are wonderful too.

[Lorant Voros]

Artie,

I'd love to see the images where the flash fired. You are so lucky to have this bird eye level. I already like this one for all the above mentioned reasons, so I am eager to see one with more detail on the face. Congratulations, master.

[Art Kornienko]

Beautiful bird, would have been nice to have a bit more light on the right side (bird's left).

[Jay Gould]

Hi Mate, a lot has been written - no repeats!

For me your image is alive. I look at it and I am waiting for the bird to simply fly towards me.

I am totally grabbed by this image!!

Thanks for sharing and for the extensive explanations.

[Arthur Morris]

Exquisite and I don't mind the HA as is, gives more attention to the colorful beak. I do notice a red flare or glow where the yellow and black breast feathers meet.

Connie, The red flare is feathers!

[Arthur Morris]

Norm, thanks for your kind words and for your understanding.

Lorant, I have posted a(n) (over-) flashed image of the same bird in a different pose. This would be a rare instance where I like the original side-lit (gasp!) best of all.

And a big time thanks to all for stopping by.

[Arthur Morris]

Jeez, I just realized that I never posted the ORIG so here it is.

[Norm Dulak]

Artie:

I'm pleased to know that you at one time also thought an HDR approach might work in such cases, and that you actually tried it and learned that it did not work. We all appreciate learning from your experience.

And another valuable thing I've learned from this thread is that there can be images such as this one in which near perfect development of all elements may still be impossible now. I would not have expected that with modern high-resolution and high-fps digital SLR's, and with the powerful post-processing tools that are available.

Still the image is beautiful, and absolute perfection is not essential to produce a stunning result.

Norm Dulak

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for your comments above Norm. Here is the error in your original thinking: with bright saturated highlights in the sun and blacks in the shade it is unrealistic to think that we will be able to maintain detial in the sunlit highlights while revealing it in the shaded dark tones. It is tough enough to do that well with all of the subject in the same light (and is of course easier if the entire scene is shaded).

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks for your comments above Norm. Here is the error in your original thinking: with bright saturated highlights in the sun and blacks in the shade it is unrealistic to think that we will be able to maintain detial in the sunlit highlights while revealing it in the shaded dark tones. It is tough enough to do that well with all of the subject in the same light (and is of course easier if the entire scene is shaded).

Artie:

The technology will eventually get us there. We will reach a point where anything captured by the eye can be accurately and completely reproduced. But thanks for your insights now.

Norm Dulak

[Arthur Morris]

I am not quite sure that the eye can see detail in shaded blacks at the same time that it can see detail in brilliant sunlit highlights. Does anyone know for sure?