Booted Racket-tail (male)

[Peter Hawrylyshyn]

A target bird for many visitors to Ecuador. Photo taken at Tandayapa lodge where it is most easily seen on the West slope.
Mk4 500mmF4 Manual Mode ISO 200 /250 f22 Multi-flash setup(power set at 1/32)
All C&C welcome.

[Troy Lim]

Stunning....killer BG, great setting. Exposure looks great.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Awesome bird, exposure and sharpness are spot on too. Appealing BG, and a beautiful flower. You could tone down the white reflections on the yellow parts, and if you have room at right I'd add some of it back a bit to prevent the higher part of the flower from skimming the right edge.

[Greg Basco]

Peter, lighting looks really nice on the bird (some good texture in there), and the BG looks good too. I hate to rain on the parade of an otherwise nice image, but the upside down flower just doesn't work for me. Sanchezia flowers are erect, not pendant.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[Arthur Morris]

Love the colors, the lighting, and the wing position. You have really got to watch your flower positioning with Greg around :)

[Peter Hawrylyshyn]

Greg
You solved two problems for me - - the name of the flower and its correct position. We picked a bunch of native flowers for the setups, and by the time we got back to the lodge - i'd forgotten the original position for this one. Ironically, this was a favorite with several species of HB's.
Thanks for the helpful advice and comments
Peter

[Greg Basco]

Hi, Peter. Yes, Sanchezia (probably speciosa is the species as it looks like the same one most commonly encountered here in Costa Rica) attract lots of different hummers in my experience too. I'm not surprised the upside down flower didn't deter them from feeding. Now if the birds would have come in upside down then you could have just flipped the whole image over:)

By the way, Sanchezia is in the Acanthaceae, or bear's breech, family.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[Doug Brown]

OK, so the flower is upside down. A minor detail! ;) Otherwise an excellent image Peter. I might tone down the brightest whites.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Cool looking bird and plant. Yes, it does not grow this way but I will pretend it's fine! Great wing position and iridescence. I wish you have maintained the 3:2 ratio.