Rufous Hornero (My new victim)

[Ramon M. Casares]

Hi all, today I would like to introduce you my new victim :D, during the past weeks while working with the Chimango, this little guy visited the perch to eat the meet I had ready for the Chimango, so now I will start working with this guy, my goal is to get a shot of him, singing as their singing pose is really really nice, with some luck I hope to be able to show it to you in this shot he is yawning :)
Hope you like this one though. Comments and critiques are welcome and apreciated. IMO light angle could've been a tad better.

1/1000Seg.
F6.3
ISO 1000
MarkII
300mm f4
Monopod
Hide


Enjoy.

[Harshad Barve]

This is so good Ramon, Loved the open beek & eyes
Harshad

[denise ippolito]

Ramon, I love the open mouth and beautiful details, the eye looks great!!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice Hornero. I like his open beak and the perch. I don't know if you could work a bit more on the BG since there are some light blue areas especially the one in front of the bird that are distracting for been there. Other than that this is a great image.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Thanks Juan Carlos, the thing with the BG is that it's a tree loosing it leaves, so I don't really can control the gaps between branches and leaves, I depend on the wind :(

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Ramon, I know that you can't control those gaps on a real world but if you are not against cloning or healing then you could achieve something more or less like this.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Not bad, I am not against it at all, but when those things are not that distracting to me I usually tend to leave them :)
Thanks for taking the time to work on it though. I apreciate it. :)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the calling pose, eye contact and details and might only lighten the shadows a little.

[Mital Patel]

thats a terrifying shot ramon. i would also go without cloning of that gap's.

open mouth, showing tounge and the eye gives a terrific look.

What i feel is if you could have taken up a selective sharpness on the bird's face and feathers a bit it would have been added a more drama and also a little bit of saturation down on the bg.

Dont know if this is allowed by the norms of bird photography or not but what i read here people suggesting doing this so i feel would be okay to write.

[Stu Bowie]

The light looks pretty good to me, and well timed to capture the open beak, and showing the tongue too. Good sharp detail, and I like the colours in the BG as is. Congrats on a fine image.

[Kobus Tollig]

Super shot well done. Again the super bg and light. Like the pose. I would not sharpen more cause I feel that some parts of the body already looks a bit overshapened. Super well done

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

While I agree on cloning I do not see a reason to increase saturation that much. The only thing is missing of this excellent image is a bit of contrast. Original looks a bit pale. Moving the left slider in the levels resulted a pleasant image. But no saturation...

Szimi

[Ramon M. Casares]

Dont know if this is allowed by the norms of bird photography or not but what i read here people suggesting doing this so i feel would be okay to write.

It is Ok, and i apreciate it Mital. Thanks for taking the time to work on the image. :)

[Bill Sharkey]

Fantastic shot Ramon!

I prefer fixing the white spot you had, but still a great shot! :)

Bill

[Ramon M. Casares]

Thnaks Bill and all, I agree that it looks better without the sky spot in the BG, but the quiestion I do to myself in these situations is: Is it really that distracting? If it is, and if it really bothers aestheticaly I usually don't have a problem in removing a distracting element, but if to me it doesn't really bother that much, as I said, I tend to leave it as it was, the thing is that it is very easy to fix a lot of little details like that with PS, and in that case all of my images could use some more PS work, but I will alaways like better a less manipulated image, so if something doesn't bother me much I rather leave than fix it just beacause it can be fixed :)

[Morkel Erasmus]

great pose, BG and light here Ramon! the open beak and tongue makes this image for me. the gap in the tree doesn't bother me that much as well. ditto Kobus - it's sharp enough

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

but I will alaways like better a less manipulated image, so if something doesn't bother me much I rather leave than fix it just beacause it can be fixed :)

Good point! Luckily most of us photographing birds for ourselves and not for fitting anyone's taste. Just make your way.

Szimi

[Nagesh Mula]

Hi Ramon, Its a very a good pose and nice BG which is giving the feeling of fall colors to me.
I like the original sharpness and I don't feel the need to be oversharpened in this case. As far as the blue patch is concerned, I would leave it on you as its purely a personal taste :-).

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Good point! Luckily most of us photographing birds for ourselves and not for fitting anyone's taste. Just make your way.

Szimi

Well, to me this is part of the ''Honest critique done gently'' I am only saying that to me and just ME the light blue blob was distracting, if that was in another part of the image would not be so obvious but is right in front of the most important part of the image, the open bill (at least for me) and I understand your point that we never fully satisfied everyone tastes, that has always been like that and it will never change, I am with Ramon about manipulate the minimum but if an image is close to perfection then a little cloning here and there could make it even better. That was my point in the first place and I am sorry if I did not explain my self correctly. jc

[Ramon M. Casares]

Juan Carlos, I understand what you say, I was not bothered by you comment at all, I actually agree with you that it is distracting, it is just that to me it is not THAT distracting, that's all, I enjoy and welcome all critiques and suggestions. I post images in this forum because I can get great feedback and have very constructive conversations with a lot of other photographers, so I apreciate all comments (done gently) as well as I enjoy being able to have these type of discussions wich I find very enriching :)