Rusty-faced Parrots

[Tom Friedel]

First image post in many years.

Colombia. Canon 5D Mark III, 300 F/2.8 + 1.4 + flash
ISO 1600 for fog and F/5.6

Heavy fog and drizzle allowed me to get close to these endangered parrots.
This shot was in a short break from the fog, but the histogram had a high
value of around 210. PS shadow/highlights wants to stretch that to 255, but
then the background is really bright. So I tweaked the lower values with 'curves'
but left the histogram more or less as it was. Cropped to about 1/3 sensor and
no other edits.

Comments about this photo welcome; it was a rare opportunity so want to
make the photo as good as it can be.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Tom, I am captivated by this image. The matching colors of the bromeliad and the birds are so, so sweet. I like the soft light and love the image design. I eliminated the one branch that really bugged me, lightened the whole thing by pulling up the curve, and applied a 25% layer of NIK Detail Extractor and Tonal Contrast to the birds and the branches and vegetation only.

Overall: A+ for this beautiful image.

[Alan Murphy]

I like what Artie did to bring out detail. More room on top for me and I would go warmer to compensate from the cool flash work. Love the perch and comp.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Nice work by Arthie, image has improved dramaticly. Love the pose of these two fellas and the lichen-rich branch.

[Karl Egressy]

The original is nice the repost is excellent.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice work on the OP Tom, and with Artie's helping hand it looks even better. I do agree with Alan about a bit more room above and I'd be inclined to also remove the branch growing out of the top bird's back...but all-in-all very sweet image. Talk about cute parrots!

[Tom Friedel]

Thanks for feedback, it was very helpful. OP I guess is optical proximity; I had to find some abbreviation lists and that one wasn't in any :)

[Arthur Morris]

OP is original post.

[Holger Leyrer]

Wonderful exotic perch and composition.