Oropendola

[Glenn Conlan]

This is from our recent trip to Costa Rica with Doug Brown and Greg Basco. If this is on your list of places to visit, I highly recommend Doug and Gregs workshop. Non stop photographic opportunities that can challenge your ability to handle many variable light conditions. Trip of a lifetime for me. Shot handheld D850, 600mm, IOS 800, F5.6 at 1/1000 sec. Thanks for your critics and comments

[annmpacheco]

Hi Glenn, Whoooaaah! This is superb, love the detailed bird, the colors, the perch and the BG. Glad you had such a wonderful adventure. Looking forward to more and glad to see you back posting!

[Isaac Grant]

Hi Glenn. Happy to see you posting again also. I have been to Costa Rica twice but never with a camera. Must go there one day. It is great seeing all these posts lately from around the world so we get to enjoy the great diversity and beauty of the world's birds. You have captured this Montezuma's Oropendola on a perfect perch with a perfect background. Pose and head angle are spot on. On my first trip out of the US to Belize I was blown away by their call. Listening to them in a tropical forest is something that I hope all of us get to do one day.

It is very difficult to process images in this kind of light and you have to push the file much more than you would normally do to get the colors to look full and vibrant. Sensors just mess these situations up all the time and the photos come out of the camera flat and a bit thin. In post you need to warm them up a little, push the exposure and add more blacks and mid tones to the file to really bring out the full colors of the bird. I did a quick rework of the image to show you what I mean. The dark greens often get banding once they are compressed so don't worry about that. To help that I smoothed the background more than I would normally do but just didn't want the banding to take away from the beautiful bird. By increasing the exposure, adding some blacks in levels, increasing the saturation of the reds and the overall exposure it really makes the image come to life. Of course the usual comments about all of this is best done on the full res file but this is to give an idea of what can be done.

[annmpacheco]

Hey Isaac, I like the repost: the vibrance, the colors, the shadows lifted under the belly, and the blacks have more detail. Also, there is an improvement with BG noise reduction, well done. So a few questions: do you like this Glenn? What did you use for NR? and Isaac what did you use? Also, Issac what do you mean by smoothing out the BG, how do you do that and why? The only thing missing here is audio playing, and being in Costa Rica! Beautiful image, beautiful repost...

[Juan Tolentino]

Absolutely beautiful, Everything works together here, Issac's repost is an improvement. Very well done. TFS.

[arash_hazeghi]

Pretty cool shot Glenn, wish I was there next to you guys :D handsome bird in an attractive setting I like the alert pose and the details. You will get best results with your Nikon with C1 Pro, I find that the colors are spot on out of the camera without needing to adjust too many things. Sweet shot and congrats

TFS

[Tim Foltz]

Glenn, Congratulations on a beautiful bird, sounds like you guys had a great trip.
Nice details, HA, BG, perch, etc.

-Tim

[Glenn Pure]

Hard to beat this one Glenn. The others have said it all: great pose, perch and background and wonderful bird. A difficult one to process for sure and I thought your OP was pretty good. The repost has more punch for sure but I don't mind the subtlety of the OP at all.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Glenn, excellent alert pose, and lots to look at on this fellow. I do like the various colours on him, tack sharp, and I like the angled perch through the frame. I feel Isaac has raised this a touch higher on his RP.

[gail bisson]

Hi Glenn,
Looks like you guys had a great trip.
I love the noise and calls these guys make. I was not able to get close to them in CR because they were always in the tree tops.
I love the perch with the little plant growing on the stem. Great IQ and terrific BG with this set-up.
I have never seen these guys up close so cannot comment on color accuracy. The repost certainly adds more color and pop.
Would love to have this in my files,
Gail

[Isaac Grant]

Ann I ran NR with Neat Image on the background. Just used my formula for ISO 1250 and brought the Y channel down to 50%. That is what I do to smooth the background and reduce noise.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very cool bird, right down to its name! I love the attentive pose here, and the perch/BG are pretty darn good as well. Although I liked your OP, I do see improvement on the repost. I'd be happy with either one.

[Glenn Conlan]

Hi Glenn. Happy to see you posting again also. I have been to Costa Rica twice but never with a camera. Must go there one day. It is great seeing all these posts lately from around the world so we get to enjoy the great diversity and beauty of the world's birds. You have captured this Montezuma's Oropendola on a perfect perch with a perfect background. Pose and head angle are spot on. On my first trip out of the US to Belize I was blown away by their call. Listening to them in a tropical forest is something that I hope all of us get to do one day.

It is very difficult to process images in this kind of light and you have to push the file much more than you would normally do to get the colors to look full and vibrant. Sensors just mess these situations up all the time and the photos come out of the camera flat and a bit thin. In post you need to warm them up a little, push the exposure and add more blacks and mid tones to the file to really bring out the full colors of the bird. I did a quick rework of the image to show you what I mean. The dark greens often get banding once they are compressed so don't worry about that. To help that I smoothed the background more than I would normally do but just didn't want the banding to take away from the beautiful bird. By increasing the exposure, adding some blacks in levels, increasing the saturation of the reds and the overall exposure it really makes the image come to life. Of course the usual comments about all of this is best done on the full res file but this is to give an idea of what can be done.

Isaac, thanks for your input it makes the colors pop, processing is something that I am weak at thanks for the help.

Glenn

[Glenn Conlan]

Hey Isaac, I like the repost: the vibrance, the colors, the shadows lifted under the belly, and the blacks have more detail. Also, there is an improvement with BG noise reduction, well done. So a few questions: do you like this Glenn? What did you use for NR? and Isaac what did you use? Also, Issac what do you mean by smoothing out the BG, how do you do that and why? The only thing missing here is audio playing, and being in Costa Rica! Beautiful image, beautiful repost...

Ann thanks for your comment I use Imagenomics for Noise reduction but Neat Image is on my list to add to my plugins

[Glenn Conlan]

Ann I ran NR with Neat Image on the background. Just used my formula for ISO 1250 and brought the Y channel down to 50%. That is what I do to smooth the background and reduce noise.

Isaac is the Y channel adjustment something within Neat Image?

[Isaac Grant]

My pleasure Glenn. Man you did 99.9% of the work! Got to the tropical location. Shot a beautiful bird on a great perch with a perfect background. Photo is really sharp. Just need to fine tune that last step. It really does make a big difference in the final output.

[David Salem]

Looks great buddy and I'm glad you started posting again. That was a fun trip and we've got lots of great memories from it. Very interesting birds these guys. Well done and looking forward to more.

[Doug Brown]

Looks like I'm a little late to the party. Excellent photo of a Montezuma Oropendola Glenn! Great pose, nice perch, and sweet BG. Isaac's repost definitely gives the image more pop. So glad you could join us on the workshop!