Nikon D200
ISO 640
Nikkor 80-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens at 400 mm, hand held
Shutter Priority at 1/250 sec, f/10
Matrix metering, EC -0.67 stop
Nikon SB800 flash at -1/3
This image of a male mountain gem hummingbird on a canna lilly was captured in a Costa Rican cloud forest under cloudy conditions in which electronic flash was the primary illumination source.
Last edited by Norm Dulak; 08-07-2008 at 04:41 AM.
Reason: image correction
Little bird, big flower, it really shows how small it is. I wish for more eye contact and would remove the BG noise and 'steel eye'. For me it would work better if this one part of the flower wouldn't cover the bird's body. Thanks for sharing!
Hello Norm.
I agree with Axel about the BG and the steel eye, some times is hard not to use flash right?
About the genre of this guy I will tell you that this is the female of the Purple-throated Mountain-gem, Lampornis calolaemus.
In addition to the above the head angle and the merge of the head with the buds (???) are less than ideal.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
For me the flower takes more prominence than the bird.The focus is more on the flower than the bird. But it still shows the nice habitat of these birds. The metallic eye is a bit distracting.
Many thanks to all for your comments, including the bird identification. The lesson here for me is not to post things late at night when too tired to properly prepare the image. The new image posted above should resolve the most serious issues, although there is no ready solution for the domination by the flower or the merge issues.
Mountain Gem on Canna
Reply With Quote