Had to think about this for a few minutes. First, thought white BG was too overpowering but am alright with it now. I was reviewing you exposure settings and thought ,how could you get more shutter but the catch-light looks tight and motion blur seems to be well controlled given the subject. With a clean BG, I might have went with a wider aperture and bumped the shutter - really nice. In TN, I am yet to see the Ruby's - thanks for sharing.
Hi Ian I like the bg but I'm drawn to high key images, remember any comment is just personal taste and hope it will not detract you form making many more like this one !!
Would suggest giving one more third compensation for the bird's body ... btw when looking at the histogram keep in mind the entire bg can be totally blown and its a perfectly fine image .. not to worry about the sea of blinkies :)
I like Jeff's idea about the higher shutter speed but don't think you could ever get enough to stop motion on the wings, they are motoring !!! About the only way is a multiple flash set up !!! .. you could try lowering the shutter speed to 1/500 and trying some flash ! Raising it more will limit the flash output !! Looking forward to the next one !!
Thanks for the comments, Jeff and Al. I've done a few with flash, but have yet to get one I'm happy with. One of the advantages of living in Arizona is that I usually have gobs of light -- often too much. I understand that fill would help sometimes, though.
Al, what do you mean by "...would suggest giving one more third compensation for the bird's body"? Do you mean exposure?
Jeff, I'm going to play with the BG a bit and see how it looks toned down. I've tried shutter speeds up to 1/5000 sec and I rarely can get rid of the wing motion on these little motors!
Hi ian - I like the OP - Like high key though - just personal taste.
Lots to like here and AL'S advice is spot on when doing high key. Dont worry about the blinkies unless they are on your subject.
Like it - big Congrats :)
Hi Ian Good re post, just what I was thinking .. would add a little more feather contrast with curves and bring out the shining color a bit more !! Also cropped some as suggested by Dave L and agree with him .. nicely done !!!
Thanks everyone for your help with this! I think it does look so much better now! I tend to lean towards dark and have to remember to brighten things up a bit!
Hi Ian, I'm a bit late on this but after looking at the reposts a few times I lean toward Al's rendition due to it being lighter but the blend of subtle colors work for me. #10 is also to my liking.
Panel 10 looks good, maybe the OP was a tad under exposed. Might check histogram for left hand clipping in the future or use CS4 info bar or levels - nice repost.
Very interesting. With the original post, I didn't think I could possibly like it with the white background. But with the last repost by Al, I find it rather nice :)
Tom
Anna's Hummingbird
