Hummingbird, Rufous male

[Wally Nussbaumer]

Male Rufous Hummingbird, Bull River BC. Canon EOS 20D 1/250 manual X-sync, multiple flash. EF 100-200 L at 220 mm, f/14

[Robert Amoruso]

Cool looking Hummer image Wally. The BG is very unobtrusive to the subject.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great pose, details and flash work. I would give it a bit more room and run NR on the BG. Keep them coming!

[David Hemmings]

Wow, I think this is stunning, beautiful details and fine use of flash!

[Wally Nussbaumer]

Unfortunately I do not have any noise reduction software and I find Adobe's NR doesn't do much.....could be doing it incorrectly though!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Unfortunately I do not have any noise reduction software and I find Adobe's NR doesn't do much.....could be doing it incorrectly though!

The noise reduction tool in CS3 works well for me. Here I applied NR on the BG only.

[Wally Nussbaumer]

Back to the drawing board! Perhaps its the selecting just the background, or inverse I can't seem to get correct. I keep looking for a clearly defined edge and am unable to get it. When I increase the size of the image it's never a clear edge, more of a fuzzy one and I haven't figured out how to deal with that.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Back to the drawing board! Perhaps its the selecting just the background, or inverse I can't seem to get correct. I keep looking for a clearly defined edge and am unable to get it. When I increase the size of the image it's never a clear edge, more of a fuzzy one and I haven't figured out how to deal with that.

I used the magic wand tool to select the BG only. Then inverse and expand the selection by 4 pixels (select - modify - expand), inverse again and apply NR.

[Shawn Marques]

Wally, while you have the wand tool selected, check the tolerance. Try it set at 25. The higher the number, the more pixels it will pick up at a time so adjust it accordingly. Also, if you hold down the SHIFT key as you use the wand tool, it will add to your selection with each click. Hold down the ALT key to take away from the selection.

BTW, I really like how the body is twisting.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Very beautiful capture Wally and I love the excellent detail and lighting. The above comments have covered it all. Thanks for shariing.

[Wally Nussbaumer]

Wally, while you have the wand tool selected, check the tolerance. Try it set at 25. The higher the number, the more pixels it will pick up at a time so adjust it accordingly. Also, if you hold down the SHIFT key as you use the wand tool, it will add to your selection with each click. Hold down the ALT key to take away from the selection.

That part I know, however most times it selects stuff I do not want and I end up going down to 1 or 2 pixels which is a royal pain! Especially with spread wings because they are transparent and background color starts to have an affect.

[Doug Brown]

Great pose. Love the gorget and the spread tail feathers.