Amazilia Hummingbird (Amazilia amazilia)

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Captured this image on the outskirts of Lima on recent trip to Peru. Slight dusting of pollen is from a Yellow Hibiscus he was dining on. A lifer for me. C&C welcome.


D4s, Nikon 500mm + 1.4 tc, 1/640s, f 5.6, ISO 1000, Manual, Monopod.


Geoffrey

[William Dickson]

Beautiful looking bird Geoffrey and you captured it well. The white BG really shows off the detail and colours on the bird. Good capture.

Will

[Satish Ranadive]

Magnificent image of cute and colourful bird.
Congrats for the lifer.

Regards,
Satish.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks for sharing this not so common hummer. Good exposure and nice view of those delicate feet. I wish you were a tad higher when shooting this frame, I find the leaves in the BG a bit distracting as they have interested with the hummer.

The details in the chest and head seem to have suffered from application of strong NR, while there are some grainy patches in the tail, most likely from masking.

TFS

[keith mitchell]

Did think the IQ had suffered a tin bit ,think Arash might have explained this, it's a cracking little bird making a very nice image.


Keith.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Awesome species here, and I like what you were going for (high images of HBs are quite uncommon!). The dusting of pollen that you point out is a really neat touch! I agree the leaves are a distraction in this case (especially the two upper corners), and I also noted what Arash explained about the IQ. I'm sure a bit more sharpening would bring out the fine details, but the tail needs NR to match the rest of the body. I also think darker blacks would be good here.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thanks for sharing this not so common hummer. Good exposure and nice view of those delicate feet. I wish you were a tad higher when shooting this frame, I find the leaves in the BG a bit distracting as they have interested with the hummer.

The details in the chest and head seem to have suffered from application of strong NR, while there are some grainy patches in the tail, most likely from masking.

TFS

Thanks Arash. Interesting you mention loss of details in chest and head areas, and grainy patches in tail. I didn't use NR on head and chest, or any masking on the tail. I did use a bit of selective sharpening on the tail. If you have any other thoughts on why this is occurring, would like to know.

Geoffrey

[arash_hazeghi]

what program did you use for RAW conversion?

using sharpening in an OOF area such as the tail above will only result in noise. I wouldn't sharpen something that wasn't in focus

[Geoffrey Montagu]

what program did you use for RAW conversion?

using sharpening in an OOF area such as the tail above will only result in noise. I wouldn't sharpen something that wasn't in focus

Arash, I use ACR. Removed the leaves, went back to the original soft tail. Daniel, I added a few points of black and a tad of sharpening.



Geoffrey

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Geoffrey

The repost is better

ACR does apply noise reduction unless you manually set to to zero. That might be why the details are a bit lacking. Or perhaps too much cropping

best