Mistletoebird

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Photographed this male Mistletoebird with my friend's rig. He loves his D2Hs and 200-400VR so while he was playing with his 600 VR I was toying with this outfit. Overcast conditions and of course I didn't want to rob him of his flash.

This male came to the nest to feed his young and arrived very quickly then also departed. I had to fumble around a little since I hardly use Nikon gear. Considering this is ISO1600 and hand held, I was relatively happy with the result. Almost a full frame image. If anyone has any suggestions how to tone down that light blob in front of him, that would be appreciated.

Nikon D2Hs, 200-400VR +1.4x, 550mm (FOV = 825mm), ISO1600, f/5.6, 1/160th, HH, +2/3 EC, 90% of FF. Ran NR on the BG.

[Doug Brown]

Very pretty bird. Nice sharpness. Good exposure considering the black plumage against a bright BG. Here's a repost that tries to fix the bright area. How do you like it?

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Man, I give up. :D That looks awesome Doug! How did you do it? I tried selecting, dodging but then I figured the blending is all too hard. So I thought I'd let an expert suggest something.

Thanks mate. :)

[Doug Brown]

All I did was select the bird and copy it to its own layer. Then I duplicated the BG layer. Next I sampled a color from the image and using the brush tool at maybe 40-50% opacity, painted over the bright area in the BG copy layer. The last step was to create a layer mask on the bird layer and mask the areas of my bird selection that had the original bright BG.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Holy canoli! That's so easy? I will try shortly. Thanks for sharing the tips Doug, I truly appreciate your help. :)

[Gal Shon]

Doug, thank you. I must learn how to use PS... any suggestions?
Akos, well captured. I like the leaves in the FG and BG. Doug's repost upgrade the image.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Doug,

Here is the one I reworked based on your tips. What do you reckon?

[Doug Brown]

Good job Akos!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Beautiful bird, good eye contact and sharpness. Adding to the other comments, I might remove the leaves in the foreground.

[Malcolm Benn]

Beautiful image Ákos.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Great bird, I like the colors a lot. Good job with the re-post.

[Stu Bowie]

Hey Bro, good job on the exposure on the darker plumage, and I like the colours and sharpness. Your repost rocks. How did you find the Nikon ;)

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Hey Bro, good job on the exposure on the darker plumage, and I like the colours and sharpness. Your repost rocks. How did you find the Nikon ;)

Thanks Stu.

I actually quite like the Nikon outfit. The camera is a pro body as far as I know, and even though only 4 megapixels, I would love to test run it under more ideal light conditions. It's a 1.5x FOV crop so with the 200-400 + 1.4x the actual reach is over 800mm so perfect. But you can never have enough reach anyway.

ergonomically the body is great and controls intuitively placed, though I am still not too familiar. I think five maybe six outings and I would have it pretty well covered. IOW I do like the dark side. :)

[Thonnaksar NOP]

Akos, I can let you play with this outfit for a week or two if you like ! :cool:

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Akos, I can let you play with this outfit for a week or two if you like ! :cool:

Tres bien mon ami. That is extremely kind of you. :)

[Rob Drummond]

Nice alert pose Akos. Good job with the background. it's great learning things - thankyou.

cheers
Rob