Lorikeets at nest hollow

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I spent an hour or so in the dying afternoon light yesterday photographing my local parrot nesting area. These guys were in a hollow about 8 feet above ground. The light was gone, so I had to use the flash.
In effect, I had to combine two images, as one had a sliver of the LHS cut because I was handholding. But only a little of the female (left) was cropped. So I added from another of the sequence - actually the next image in the sequence. Hope it's OK.

30D, 300mm f/4L IS, 1.4x, HH, ISO800, 1/60th, f/5.6, 0 EC, 430EX on zero. no beamer. Cropped a little from RHS and below.

[Arthur Morris]

Wonderful, wonderful. Excellent job with the stitch and two perfect HAs. The bright white on the right could easily be toned down with a QM and a Linear Burn.

[Brian Barcelos]

Looking at your parots I feel like a kid again starring into a box of crayons!:D Very nice job exposing all the colors and perfect head angles. Never would have known you did major surgery here. Agree about toning down the tree.

Brian

[Harshad Barve]

Akosbhai
Agreed with Brian here :)
These species have use most of the colors in crayon box :D

Lovely image , wonderful stiching ,
I am loving this as posted
TFS

[Rey Sta Ana]

Wonderful Akos, love the composition in portrait mode and the nice pose of the birds with one coming out of the nesting hole.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Akos...
I agree that your PS work was done very carefully here and that both HA are nice. I only find the bird on the left a little ''washed out'' I mean, look at the colors on the guy of right, its colors are more saturated and rich, especially the blues. The bright white has been mentioned.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Excellent Akos, I would never have guessed that you stitched. Great composition, perfect poses
and HA, what a pair. I'm not even going to start about the colors. The tree detail and texture, the female coming out add perfect context.
Congratulations!

[Kiran Poonacha]

Two good Bro.. loved the HA of both the birds, Lovely Job on the stiching.. Just tone down the left part of the BG, it will look much better.. congrats Bhai..

[Rob Drummond]

Nice one Akos -as nice a shot as I've seen of this species in a long while (and there's no shortage of shots!). Really like the composition and the way both have their heads turned.

cheers
Rob

[Leo Berzins]

Delightful image, Ákos, and a great stitching job.
If it were mine, I'd remove the small central catchlight from the flash in the left bird.

[denise ippolito]

Akos, I like the composition and agree the left bird looks a bit washed out. I think the way you have merged them is fantastic. Well done.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Good PS work and lovely image! Grear species, lovely colors, detail, natural moment and sharpness! Congratulations!

[Ryan Lambert]

Super PS work here, good use of flash and nice nesting site image..congrats

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Thanks for the comments. I was also a bit surprised as to how washed out the left bird is hence why I am thinking female as I would guess the male would be more vibrant to attract her. In the RAW the left bird also looks washed out. I will post the two images shortly so you see how little the addition really was.
Thanks for looking and for the ideas on improving the image. :)

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

hence why I am thinking female as I would guess the male would be more vibrant to attract her
:)

That would be a good reason for the difference of colors.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

The two files I merged. :)

[Rob Smith]

Nice work Akos. You've done a fantastic job with this. One of my favourite birds