Asian Paradise Flycatcher

[Amano Samarpan]

from the Himalayan Foothills May 2008

this bird can be found throughout India ...

Canon EOD iD Mark 111
500mm f4 with 1.4X
1/80'th @ f8.0


Amano

[Glenn Bartley]

Not the easiest bird to compose for is it :p

[Julie Brown]

I thought the same thing as Glenn, how difficult it must be to get that long tail in the frame! I'm curious why you shot this at 1/80. Was the light too low to go with more SS? What was the ISO? Tripod or hand-held?

[Amano Samarpan]

apologies for the mistake about equipment .. it was done with a 2X convertor

tripod mounted camera with ISO 400 ... maybe 800 would have been better but the slightly out of focus tail works OK !!?

this composition was based around capturing the tail; might remove the tree trunk at top right .. !!

thanks for looking

Amano

[Julie Brown]

Amano, thanks for providing the additional data. This is a beautiful bird with a pleasing background, btw. The OOF tail is OK with me-I would want the head and body to be sharpest anyway. So, with a 1000mm lens focal length, and even on a tripod, don't you still want more SS than 1/80sec? How high can this camera go with the ISO and still have good IQ? Oh, and I would clone out the tree trunk and add more canvas to the right, if it were mine.

[Arthur Morris]

Lovely bird and a good job of getting it all in the frame. I would definitely lose the trunk. When I first opened the image, I thought, I need to clean my glasses. I did, and ooops, the image looks as if you had used a fog filter--it has a hazy look with very little contrast.

You might wish to start over with the processing....

[Harshad Barve]

Excellent C & C by Guru here , Not an easy bird for sure
TFS

[Craig Brelsford]

Asian paradises flycatchers live in China too, and I've photographed them, and I know how hard they are to photograph. Congratulations on simply getting the shot. I'd eliminate the trunk, as Artie said.

[Amano Samarpan]

Lovely bird and a good job of getting it all in the frame. I would definitely lose the trunk. When I first opened the image, I thought, I need to clean my glasses. I did, and ooops, the image looks as if you had used a fog filter--it has a hazy look with very little contrast.

You might wish to start over with the processing....

Hi Artie

I did look again at the original. It is one from a series of this bird, some of the others showing more feather detail similar to that in the post that followed this of the same species from Ram Mallya.

Fog? Haze? Interesting that you suggest that because the reason I eventually went for an 800mm is that I found the 500mm f4 IS with a 1.4X and the 1D Mark 111 to produce foggy effects in certain light situations. Here it may have contributed to the overall effect.

In this image there is a little more exposure and with a slower shutter speed, a bit of blur in the tail. The effect is almost ghostly but gives an overall impression of the bird rather than a sharp image for ID though the ID here is unmistakeable.

Have removed the branch as you suggested (I had contemplated this also!) quite easily with the clone tool but the result was messy so I copied the image onto another layer, applied a Gaussian blur and masked it; then it was just a matter of painting back in the blur over the messy area with a soft brush.

Thanks for your feedback and that of others ...

Amano

[Amano Samarpan]

Hi

Here is a repost ... I have left the slightly unsharp image of the bird although sharpened the eye a little more.

The branch has gone (details in my previous post)

Amano

[Amano Samarpan]

Artie

A small but significant correction to this post ... was using a 2X extender not a 1.4X and this in certain conditions was producing flare !!

Amano



Hi Artie

I did look again at the original. It is one from a series of this bird, some of the others showing more feather detail similar to that in the post that followed this of the same species from Ram Mallya.

Fog? Haze? Interesting that you suggest that because the reason I eventually went for an 800mm is that I found the 500mm f4 IS with a 1.4X and the 1D Mark 111 to produce foggy effects in certain light situations. Here it may have contributed to the overall effect.

In this image there is a little more exposure and with a slower shutter speed, a bit of blur in the tail. The effect is almost ghostly but gives an overall impression of the bird rather than a sharp image for ID though the ID here is unmistakeable.

Have removed the branch as you suggested (I had contemplated this also!) quite easily with the clone tool but the result was messy so I copied the image onto another layer, applied a Gaussian blur and masked it; then it was just a matter of painting back in the blur over the messy area with a soft brush.

Thanks for your feedback and that of others ...

Amano

[Arthur Morris]

Amano, I invite to post the original as the image looks as if it was photographed with a fog filter on the lens :)

[Amano Samarpan]

Thanks for the offer Artie which I shall take up .. but am now on the road for a month and do not have the original with me! :D

Can we leave it to early december please ... defogging would be welcome! :)

Amano

[Amano Samarpan]

Ohhh .. this photo has uploaded .. not really meant to as it is oversharpened!

Anyway, took me a few days to find with a guide in central India.

Amano

[Arthur Morris]

Ohhh .. this photo has uploaded .. not really meant to as it is oversharpened!

Anyway, took me a few days to find with a guide in central India.

Amano

Wrong one. I am looking for the original of the image in Pane #1.

I will be here when you get home :)

[Amano Samarpan]

Hi Artie

Thanks for offering to work from the original as it will be interesting to see what you make of it!

My initial interpretation of this image is a little dreamy, it does not really bring out the detail as much as it might and yet I like the effect.

So lets' see what you can do with it ... :2eyes2:

Amano

P.S. The CR2 file has been converted directly into a JPEG using Lightroom export; the original has no actual over-exposure in it.

[Daniel Belasco]

I like this better than the orginal post. Maybe a little sharpening around the eye and tip of the tail. Also the light on top of the bill half way down is distracting. A small crop of the tree to the top and right so the tree wasn't so overpowering.
A beautiful image and lots to work with here.