Orange-breasted Bunting

[manuel grosselet]

Hi From Oaxaca State, Southern Mexico.

Canon Mark III, Canon 300 2,8, conv 1,4 @ 4,5Fstop Speed 5000, with flash canon 580 high speed. Daylight, background, sky. ISO 400
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5641/passerinaleclancheri994.jpg

[Colin Driscoll]

That's a pretty bird! Nice pose and sharpness and good even bg. Maybe the flash could have been toned down a bit and one of the catchlights could be removed. Nice shot!

[Lorant Voros]

Hi Manuel,

Lovely species , beautiful colors and very nice clean BG. Not the nicest perch, but the rest make up for it. I agree with removing the second catchlight that you can do easily with Photoshop. I am not sure if it is a bit over-fleshed...

Congratulations.

[Phil Ertel]

I like the bird. Nice head angle and pose. When I opened the image up in PhotoShop the histograms showed that the blue channel had some information spiked on the left. If you decrease the saturation in the yellows in a Hue/Saturation layer you can move this information to the right and gain some detail in the yellows.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Beautiful bird - well done.

What was flash setting, TTL or manual?

If TTL what was FC setting, if manual, did use use % power or distance?

Phil, what would cause the blue spike? The yellow underparts lack detail, weird at 1/5000 and a quality lens.

[Connie Mier]

Beautiful pose of the bird and althought the above suggestions seem valid, I think the colors and detail look fantastic on my screen.

[Phil Ertel]

Hope I get this right; I sure if I don't someone here can set me straight. It is my understanding that blue is the complementary color for yellow. The Hue/Saturation color ranges are red, green and blue and their complementary opposites of cyan, magenta, yellow and Master. The Master color range is all colors. I checked the histograms because it looked like the yellows were a bit saturated. Since there is no yellow histogram in this case when I saw the blue clipping I assume the clipping was due to the yellows (complement of blue). So I created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer selected yellow from the drop down box and decreased the saturation. I also think decreasing the lightness of the yellows helps the presentation. If you try adjusting any of the other colors they do not affect the clipped blues. There are other way to adjust the colors but this is easy and quick.

The lack of detail in the under yellows was not a result of the lens or shutter speed it is due (in my opinion) to the over saturation of yellow. When I adjusted the image (as described above it helped bring out some additional detail. Some of this maybe personal taste but I think it is worth exploring.

Hope this helps and I have not confused you or miss lead you.

[Arthur Morris]

Killer bird, pose, and BKGR. The yellows, esp. on the bird's flank, are over-SATed. Good eye Phil. Either de-SATing the yellow, adding blue to the yellows in Selective Color, or using a blue Photo Filter will bring back the detail in the yellows. Ah, I almost forgot--all of that is covered in detail in a variety of Educational Resources threads....

The o-o-f parts of the perch in the foreground are distracting.

[Lance Peters]

Love the colours, Sharpness and the BG, 2ND Catchlight mentioned.

Here is a link to one of the articles Artie is referring to...
http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=35243
TFS

[Harshad Barve]

what a species , lovely pose and sharpness, agreed with suggations given
TFS

[Simon Bennett]

Excellent pose, lovely bird, very crisp.

[Ramon M. Casares]

I love the pose, BG, colors and sharpness, I find the OOF perch less than ideal. Great species, light, and comp. Congratulations.