I took this Snowcap hummingbird in Costa Rica. We were not allowed to use flash at this location. We probably had 2 or 3 days of sunshine during our 2 week trip and it was always sunny when we tried to photograph these guys. In the open, in the sun it was impossible to get the exposure correct - just could not get that white cap without the rest of the bird being to dark. I processed and reprocessed several photos trying to get the colors right. This is the only one that I think might be ok. I did clone out some branches in the background. Not cropped.
Nikon D800 in DX mode, 500mm f4 lens
ISO 800, f5, 1/1600 sec
Manual exposure
Pretty magical. You managed the depth of field to get the bird and flowers in focus while getting that gorgeous bg; the shutter speed is slow enough to allow the wing tips to blur while keeping detail in the bird's body; and exposure is darn good; just a few areas on the very top of the birds head which are clipped. The resolution of those feathers is just great. For my tastes a bit off the left would help... then again, caveat emptor: None of my pics are this good...
Well done Laurie - looks just fine to me and the natural lighting here gives some modelling to the hummer. I don't find the OOF flower in the BG to be obtrusive
Another vote for getting rid of the BG purple flowers.
Rest of shot looks great. Nice and sharp
Love that wing position.
I would take a bit off the left ,
Gail
I'm curious how you are processing (or is that a discussion for a different forum?) Are you shooting raw? The reason I ask is that there is so much leeway, especially in the latest versions of various software, for bringing out shadow and highlight detail, although I do understand that a dark bird with white areas could be beyond the range of anything we have now. I'm not a Nikon shooter but I'd think the D800 would have an excellent dynamic range.
Did you have the opportunity to use a reflector for some fill of the darkest areas?
I have attached a version without the flower in the background. If you are not familiar with this flower, it has lots of stalks with these flowers on them and the hummers flew from one to the next with so many flowers and stalks that most photos were very busy. I left the out of focus flower in because it showed the environment.
Diane,
I do shot in raw. I used the D800 when I photographed these hummers because it has a better dynamic range that my other camera (D3S). I do not use Nik software as many do for bringing out shadows - I tried it and did not like it. I used Topaz to mask and for noise reduction then shadows and highlights and curves in photoshop to lighten the dark areas of the bird. A reflector might have been nice but I did not have one with me and these guys fly around fast it is almost impossible to keep up with them.
The current comp is more balanced without the flower and that makes it another reason the repost works well. I'm not usually enthusiastic about removing such large parts of the image (mostly due to laziness during post) or even suggesting it to others but your work here was worth it. I would also darken the pupil. The rest looks fantastic. Pose, details, colours...all A-1.
Snowcap
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