Blue Faced Honey Eater

[Lance Peters]

With our drought now broken and lots and lots of Rain - some species have started to return to my hometown.
Thought I would share this one for those who may not have seen these guys before....

Blue Faced Honey Eater - Gregarious little fellows that dont stay still for long and are very boisterous to the extend of trying to chase me off - guess they thought I was going to try and get some of their dinner for myself!!

D3S
Sigmonster @ 650mm
F7.1
1/320TH
-0.3ev
1600 ISO
Matrix Metering
Handheld - tough!!

The blue face really is a electric blue - makes them very easy to spot.
Dont advise trying to HH a huge lens at a slow SS.

Comments welcome.

[pat lillich]

he is incredible - that face is so surreal and the colors are gorgeous.
you have my deepest respect for handholding the sigmonster!!!

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Lance,

Greetings. Beautiful colors, good detail. Handheld 1/320th @650mm! agree on the tough part. Why not higher ISO/ss (though you have remarkably steady hands)?

TFS - haven't seen this one before.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely pose Lance and very interesting looking colours.

I wonder a bit about the leaves at top and the little dead branch.

It really makes a person stop and wonder why some birds are the colours they are.

Thanks for posting.

[Julie Kenward]

The bird is beautiful, Lance. I really think you hit the sweet spot on the DOF here. There is a slight fall off at the tail so maybe a bit more DOF towards the back would have been nice but knowing you were handholding that monster lens makes me think you did a pretty darn good job here!

I also question the leaves in the URC. I like them in the frame as they help balance the weight of the opposite side of the frame but wish there were a little bit more of them included. I think you could leave them in or remove them and it would work well.

[Lance Peters]

Thanks for the comments - - this is full frame - so was undecided about the leaves - should have fixed the upper RHC though.

[Desmond Chan]

Beautiful bird, Lance ! I agree to some touch up on the upper right hand corner.