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Thread: Keel-billed Toucan

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    Default Keel-billed Toucan



    This is another image that I created in Costa Rica in mid March. After nearly seven days in that beautiful country I still had not seen one of these wonderful birds. Then an hour before breakfast on the seventh day I photographed both the keel-billed and the chestnut-mandibled toucans feeding on the fruit of a cecropia tree at La Tirimbina Reserve.

    The angle was very steep and the birds were moving in and out of the shadows.

    Canon EOS 40D, Sigma 50-500mm at 500mm on Manfroto Monopod - 1/1600 seconds, F 7.1, ISO 400. Image cropped to about 55% of full frame.

    Unfortunately I didn't use fill flash for this particular (not sure why) so the red feathers underneath the tail don't show well here. There are a couple hot spots on the bill as well but I haven't been able to eliminate them. I was still pleased to add this species to my life list and photo collection.

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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Stephen:

    Great that you added this colorful guy to your files and your life list.

    I tried a shadow protection pass on the image, to bring up the red under the tail, but wasn't really satisfied with it.

    What a colorful bill!

    I think this is the perfect reason to go back again!

    Cheers

    Randy

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    Stephen,

    Wonderful colors. Good capture and what a subject.


    I would have like a bit more detail in the shadows but as you say no fill light used so you are limited there. I loaded into CS4 and looked at the shadow, there seems to be some detail present there but... squished maybe. Did you happen to run NR globally on original?

    Anyway some detail can be pulled, I think selective sharpening helped (a couple of kinds) and personally I like a vibrance layer with increase of about 35 points. Example here and hope you don't mind my play.


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    Thank you Randy and Kim for your comments.

    Kim you've improved the image details quite a lot. I must admit that I'm Photoshop challenged (I only have PS 6) beyond some basic adjustments and yes I did run some noise adjustment which likely affected the sharpness of the bird.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stephen Stephen View Post
    Thank you Randy and Kim for your comments.

    Kim you've improved the image details quite a lot. I must admit that I'm Photoshop challenged (I only have PS 6) beyond some basic adjustments and yes I did run some noise adjustment which likely affected the sharpness of the bird.
    Stephen,
    You are welcome and I thought that I could detect the NR had been used, I may have been able to pull a bit more detail out of the original.

    PS6 is a powerful program, don't cut it short, if you study it that is as much software as many people ever need. Going to CS just makes much of the same easier and of course now to get RAW abilities for the newest cameras I think you have to upgrade, the work around is .dng conversion.

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