I took this on a photo trip to northern Costa Rica, where I stayed in the exact middle of nowhere in San Carlos canton, at a lodge that caters to bird photographers (despite having no A/C and barely enough of an internet signal to count as WiFi). They have multiple setups that attract a variety of fruit-eating birds, but the most frequent visitors have to be these guys, brown-hooded parrots. Most of the time they just sit on the perch and look kind of boring, but every once in a while they decide to do something a bit more interesting! This guy decided to flip upside down, and barely gave me enough time to move the sensor and shoot before he decided that right-side-up was more comfortable.
The optimization started with a pano crop from the vertical raw file, then a bit of bill clean-up (the brown marks on the upper and lower mandibles are natural and appear as the beak wears), some work on the background and the eye, and a final round of light detail extractor on the breast and white facial lores. I finished by adding just a touch of brightness to the head and running noise reduction.
5D mkIV, 500mm f/4 IS, 1.4x TC III, tripod mounted at a feeder setup
1/500 @ f/6.3, ISO 1600
Fill flash w/ Better Beamer, ETTL at -2
Edited to add a higher-quality file (I hope!)
Last edited by Jake Levin; 01-23-2019 at 04:21 PM.
What a beauty! You did well capturing an interesting pose instead of a simple portrait. Good BG, details and nice mossy perch. I would like to add more room to the left as the bird is leaning the head more in that direction than the right. The image looks a tiny bit cold too me as well. Otherwise great shot!
Super nice shot Jake of an excellent species. Fantastic pose, perch and background. I agree that the image could be warmed up a tiny bit and could maybe use a few points of black as well. Whenever I shoot with flash the images are always a little washed out and need to be built back up. Sometimes I do a levels adjustment, or curves, or add black in selective color or do all three!
I love it Jake! This bird looks so friendly and whimsical. A smile-maker for sure. Great colours, perch, BG. The offered suggestions would bring it up a notch or two.
Well done with a neat pose and a perfect head angle and BKGR.
artie
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