Blue Dacnis

[Geraldo Hofmann]

A species I always have problems to capture the true color, well I guess this is problem with most blue colored birds.

EOS 7D 500mm +1.4 ISO 400 f=5.6 1/640sec + high-speed fill-flash



Cheers from Sao Paulo Geraldo

[Randy Stout]

Geraldo:

Very effective flash use, subtle, which is great. I would however consider eliminating the flash catchlight in the eye. The natural catchlight is enough.
Wish the head was a bit more parallel to the sensor plane.
Food item a plus.

In a perfect world, a bit more DOF would be nice.

I wish I could comment on the accuracy of the blues, but don't know this bird.
I am seeing some blotchy jpeg color artifacts in the background.

Cheers

Randy

[Geraldo Hofmann]

Thanks Randy,

Well these creatures are very active so I went for the shutterspeed :-). The flash actually this time improved the blue color it otherwise would reflect to much of the greens in the forest. The food item is the tongue of the bird and on the picture with the better head angle the tongue is no longer to see. So I went for the tongue and the less perfect head-angle.

I will think about the catch light thanks

Geraldo

[Randy Stout]

Wow Geraldo, what a tongue. Sorry about that.

Understand the DOF vs. shutter speed tradeoff. I would have considered pushing up the ISO. From what I hear, 800 is very useable with proper exposure.

Cheers

Randy

[Geraldo Hofmann]

I am always in doubt when going higher than ISO 400 yes it is quite good but ISO 400 is for sure better in particular when you look at the shadows (the black on the back of the bird).

Well there will be another chance ....I hope

Thanks Geraldo

[Morkel Erasmus]

pretty bird! won't be able to judge the blues either...I am very comfortable pushing my 7D up to even ISO's in the thousands :)

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

The blues are right on for my eye. Nice to see the back of this bird. My only wish would be to have the bird perched in front of the camera and some less noise on BG. Other thant that a great looking and elusive species.

[Arthur Morris]

Well done and yes the blues look accurate to me too. Good use of DOF. The clump of junk hanging from the perch below the tale is distracting. Your call :)

[Pieter de Waal]

Hi Geraldo,

Nice looking bird and the back view illustrates the feather pattern which we don't often see. Blues and definition are great. Agree with removing flash catchlight and more dof.

Was this taken from a hide ?

[Art Kornienko]

I would be very happy with shot. I agree though, the clump from the perch at the tail feathers is distracting, maybe just a bit more room left and right sides,and some jpeg artifacts. Nice use of flash btw.

[Geraldo Hofmann]

Thank you all for your advice, to be honest I didn't realize the the clump behind the tail... thanks Art & Art :-). !!! Well; I will try to improve it when I am out with the camera next time

.... sadly no way to do anything about the jpg-artifacts with our dial up-connection we are already happy to get the small jpgs uploaded. And the "noise" in the background maybe partly because of the high compression at least the original doesn't look like this.

This picture was taken while waiting for another species (sitting under a bag-blind) but they can be found quite often around hummingbird and banana feeders as well.

Cheers Geraldo

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the info Gerlado. I had a chance to photograph this species in Panama. Assuming that you put up the perches best to pick really attractive ones :) And YAW.

[Geraldo Hofmann]

Art no I prepared a flower with some nectar for an endangered mammal and this fellow just popped up in a low branch of a dead tree after stealing some nectar he cleaned his tongue. So I forgot about my mammal for a few seconds and went for the Dacnis..

Sometimes we just have to be lucky ... Thanks!!!
Geraldo