Another species from my trip to Panama. I was very fortunate to have access to some private canopy towers and was able to have these common, but beautiful birds visit me every morning. They tend to stay pretty high up and perch on dead trees or open branches. They are nicknamed the pig bird because their call sounds like a grunting pig.
I like this pose and the perch. It looks like some of the whites are hot, but when I checked, there were no highlight warnings. I wish the light stick was not in the BG, so I hope that's not too distracting.
Canon 1D Mk3
Canon 600mm f/4 with 1.4xTC
ISO 400, 1/640th @ f/8
Av Mode, Eval Meter -1/3
LR2, crop, curves adj, NR on BG, sharpened
Neat bird, must be odd to hear such a call (although the Virginia Rail also sounds like a pig at times!). Whites look good from here. I agree with the BG being distracting, but I imagine you were somewhat limited in movement. I find the refelection in the eye a bit large - a bit of work there would make it better IMO. Nice comp!
Thanks Daniel, I considered that on the eye, but what I thought is cool is zoomed in you can see the big cecropia leaf in the eye reflection, so I wasn't sure if I should mess with that look?
If you're anticipating showing people a large enough print (or digitally at a large magnification) for that to be obvious then go ahead a keep it like that...but I would make a "cleaner" version for other purposes - even a 11 x 17 print would not be obvious that this is a leaf:)
The repost looks better, and the whites looks great on my monitor.
I like the bird, pose, Comp, eye contact, colors, sharpness and the green BG.
I also find the bright stick in the BG distracting.
All cleaned up, BG gone, eye fixed. It's not perfect (still have some green areas to the righ to clean up/blend), but this is my one cup of coffee 15 minute effort. :)
Bryan...the eye looks much. much better now!! Although distracting I prefer the version with the uncleaned BG. Also be careful with selecting the subject when doing such cleaning as the edges look "cookie-cutter". Again, way to go with the eye!!:)
Masked Tityra
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