Southern Red Bishop (Euplectes Orix), breeding male.
Phakalane, Botswana
It is very tricky to correclty expose these birds due to the combination of very bright orange and very dark black feathers. It took 3 RAW conversions and a lot of PS blending work to get to this result.
Canon 40D, EF100-400 @ 390mm
1/800sec @ f/10, iso 640 (I actually tried to get a good flight shot... did not manage... yet)
HH, Full frame
Vert nicely done. Greta job on the head angle. Wish that you could have gotten a bit higher to move the horizon line lower. Have you tried de-SATing the the reds and yellows 10 points or so right out of the box? That might save you lots of PS work.
later and love, artie
ps: Is that a shadow from a branch on the side of the face/neck (or just some dark feathers)?
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Arthur I did try desaturating the bright colours in the RAW stage and this does work exposure wise, but I felt too much colour was 'lost' that way. This bird is really bright! The shadow is indeed of a branch (well seen!)
Chris, Botswana is beautiful anytime of year! Thanks for your comment, but I intentionally posted a photo of the colourful back, since the front is all black.
Vincent, I thought that might have been the case. Do you live or work in Botswana? Have you posted your giraffe avatar image here? If not, I would love to see it.
later and love, artie
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.
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Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
What a beautiful bird. Great perch, pose, light and details. Artie's suggestion is great. Desaturating the reds/oranges a few points might make the postprocessing much easier. If the white spot on the perch is not part of the plant, I might remove it (looks like bird dropping?).
Last edited by Axel Hildebrandt; 02-02-2008 at 11:03 PM.
Red Bishop
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