Annas Hummingbird

[Peter Seidel]

Near my home there are a number of favorite perches for the resident males to show their colors. This particular perch is located in a stretch of bushes with lots of dead branches standing out prominently - seems to be one of their favorite spots. Shot with a Pentax K5, and Pentax DA* 300mm lens. With 1.4x converter (Tamron). On a monopod.

f/5.6, 1/1000 sec., ISO 1600

C&C's welcome.

Pete

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7207/6912858509_3c5a6ba949_b.jpg

[gail bisson]

Peter,
This is really nice. I like the image quality and feather detail. I wish you had more room on the bottom as the tail is very close to the edge. I would clone out the bit of ? spider web falling from the branch as well. I would also position the bird more to the RHS to give him more space to look into. Very nice BG,
Gail

[Clemens Vanderwerf]

Great colors and sharpness. The bird is too big in the frame for me. In an ideal world you should have move the camera and lens to the left in order to position the bird on the right hand side of the frame. You could also crop away about a 1/3 of the right and add canvas at the bottom.

[Peter Seidel]

Thanks Gail.

Appreciate the comments. Luckily with this one, I have plenty of room to work with. The original post is cropped pretty heavily. Based on your suggestions, here is another version with more room at the bottom, and with the spider web cloned out (in Lightroom). I may need to still clean that up a bit, but it should be mostly gone.

Pete

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7064/6913118195_5329dc8886_b.jpg



Peter,
This is really nice. I like the image quality and feather detail. I wish you had more room on the bottom as the tail is very close to the edge. I would clone out the bit of ? spider web falling from the branch as well. I would also position the bird more to the RHS to give him more space to look into. Very nice BG,
Gail

[Peter Seidel]

Thank you Clemens.

Looks like you and Gail are on the same page. As I mentioned to Gail, this particular image is well cropped, so I do have plenty of room to re-position the bird in the frame (left-right), and I have a lot of room above and below. In my re-post to Gail I put the bird pretty much in the middle, which I realize violates all the "thirds" rules, but just to demonstrate the extra room. Interesting that you prefer it on the right side. Is this closer to what you had in mind?

Pete

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/6913189087_559ab6d973_b.jpg




Great colors and sharpness. The bird is too big in the frame for me. In an ideal world you should have move the camera and lens to the left in order to position the bird on the right hand side of the frame. You could also crop away about a 1/3 of the right and add canvas at the bottom.

[gail bisson]

Peter,
Pane #5 is the one!!This is what I meant for you to do but Clemens explained it more precisely!Well done,
Gail

[Clemens Vanderwerf]

Peter, that is way better now. I would try to lighten the lower left and lower right corner to bring them more in balance with the tonality in the middle bottom part. While you are at it, you could also clone out the second branch part on the lower frame edge. It is too bad the bright white spot is overpowering the background.

[Don Nelson]

Much better on the repost, Peter.
Clemens - good suggestions. The hot spot to the left of the HB isn't fatal -- it can be fixed.
Here's a laptop only (not big monitor and only on the small 1024 jpg -- forgive the inexactness of the masking.) proof of concept repost -- Peter can execute on his raw.


109080

[Greg Basco]

Pete, a really nice original capture, and I do like how the image has evolved. The crop with more space on the left certainly is more pleasing. I wouldn't worry about the spider web but that's your call. Great soft light on the bird itself.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[Satish Ranadive]

Marvelous image with beautiful composition .Loved the colors,pose and details on the bird.

[Peter Seidel]

Thanks again Gail - really appreciate the comments.

Pete


Peter,
Pane #5 is the one!!This is what I meant for you to do but Clemens explained it more precisely!Well done,
Gail

[Peter Seidel]

Thanks Clemens,

You're giving me quite a homework assignment:S3:. This is one that I like quite a bit so it will be worth revisiting, perhaps even starting fresh again with the RAW file, using your comments and Gail's comments. I don't use masks (don't have photoshop), but I do have the Viveza plug-in for Lightroom. I'll try experimenting with that for the corners. I may change those, though not much. I'm not a big fan of the bright white spot but I don't think I'll change that - for some reason it doesn't bother me too much. As for the branch, I should be able to remove that in Lightroom.

Regards,

Pete


Peter, that is way better now. I would try to lighten the lower left and lower right corner to bring them more in balance with the tonality in the middle bottom part. While you are at it, you could also clone out the second branch part on the lower frame edge. It is too bad the bright white spot is overpowering the background.

[Peter Seidel]

Thanks Don,

That seems to be a more subtle transition of the bright spot in the middle the way you've done it. When I revisit this I will do some experimenting in Viveza to see if I can get a smoother transition, without causing any unnatural effect on the hummingbird's beak.

Pete

[Peter Seidel]

Thank you Greg.

I think I'll leave the hummingbird there on the right side as I adjust this further. As for the spider-web, I'm about 50-50 on that. I have others with similar looking spider webs, and I don't think they detract too much. In certain situations the clone feature in Lightroom seems to struggle a bit (or it's just me) to create a natural transition when something has been removed. This one was pretty easy so I may just leave it out.

Regards,

Pete


Pete, a really nice original capture, and I do like how the image has evolved. The crop with more space on the left certainly is more pleasing. I wouldn't worry about the spider web but that's your call. Great soft light on the bird itself.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[Peter Seidel]

Thank you for the kind words Satish. Glad you enjoyed this.

Pete




Marvelous image with beautiful composition .Loved the colors,pose and details on the bird.

[Don Nelson]

Peter -- masking the bird's beak can be done better by you on the larger image.
Its the sole cause of the issue in the 2nd repost...the first doesn't have the effect on the lower bill. As before-- its just proof of concept....

[pat lillich]

really beautiful Peter, like it in each of its variations.

[Peter Seidel]

Thank you Pat,

Glad you enjoyed them.

Pete


really beautiful Peter, like it in each of its variations.