Rainy day - Chestnut-bellied Euphonia

[Geraldo Hofmann]

The cameras survived this rainy week better than I ... both 7ds got rain for hours nearly for seven days in a row. I got a cold and could organize the pictures while staying in bed for two days and at least for me some of them where worth the cold I caught.



1/160 f=4.0 flash -1.7 hand held (as high as possible) to get less reflection of the water droplets on the bird ISO 800 (7D and 500mm + 12mm extension)


Cheers from Brasil

Geraldo

[Scott Frye]

I love the water drops and falling rain and the bird is a beaut -- I would desat the red on the flower a bit as it draws my attention from the bird

[Arthur Morris]

Lovelry bird and bright colors. Try adding 60-90 points of CYAN to the REDs in Selective Color to tone them down. Not sure where the milky white look in the upper right BKRG quadrant came from.... Reducing the contrast a bit would cut down the over-flashed look. And from here, the blue head looks a bit over-sharpened.

[Alan Murphy]

I like the comp on this one. Must have been dark. Too bad you could not get more DOF.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

A very colorful Euphonia! and the rain drops adds to the mood of the image, in the rain forest! the perch sees to prominent or overpowering for my tastes. Hope you will get better soon.

[Geraldo Hofmann]

Thanks for all the comments I will try to tone the reds a little and have a look whether this helps to improve the image... I guess it will. The milky white in the upper right corner is simply dense fog ... this day was one of the foggiest days I ever experienced... and yes it was pretty dark. So even increased the contrast this may be the reason why it looks over-flashed ... but hard to see on my old notebook display.... final editing has to wait until I am out of the forest again :-)

I am actually happy about the perch as these birds feed on the nectar and parasites of this plant and on drier days to go and look for water at the base of the leaves.

Thanks Geraldo

[Daniel Cadieux]

Beautiful bird and flower, and I love the rainy weather depicted. I agree with the oversaturation of the reds. Your resized image for web has some significant posterization in the BG that could be addressed.

P.S. I like your positive thinking about the cold you caught!!:)