Iguazu Toucan Brazil series

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

This "curious" George landed near by and i shot him with my canon 7d
Camera Model Canon EOS 7D
Firmware Firmware Version 1.1.0
Shooting Date/Time 10/16/2010 97:00 AM
Author DON_HAMILTON_JR.flyinghamiltons@comcast.net
Copyright Notice 2010
Owner's Name
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/200
Av( Aperture Value ) 8.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation -1/3
ISO Speed 1000
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM (168mm with 7D)
Focal Length 105.0mm (168mm with 7D)
Image Size 5184x3456
Image Quality RAW
Flash On
Flash Type External E-TTL
E-TTL II flash metering Evaluative flash metering
Flash Exposure Compensation -3

[Julie Brown]

Hi Don. Beautiful color and feather detail. This must be a large bird. Is this full frame? I noticed that you shot this 2 days ago. Are you back from Brazil?

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Hey Julie, yes got back yesterday! Yes, full frame, with slight crop from rt.; it landed in a bunch of limbs and trees, with a clear shot of the head. Was doing landscapes of the falls at the time,so that's all i had on for lens at the time. Hope your foot is doing better. It's a sight to see, these birds flying around free, and having them all around going after fruit in the trees. A bit disappointing to have cloudy, and mist fog form the falls,keeping the light very low, and requiring to use higher iso, just to get 1/60, which is a (^*@##$^^& handheld!
Don

[Julie Brown]

A bit disappointing to have cloudy, and mist fog form the falls,keeping the light very low, and requiring to use higher iso, just to get 1/60, which is a (^*@##$^^& handheld!

The 5D MK II would have made the difference in this situation!

[John Chardine]

... and if you have a body that can handle the low light, this is exactly what you want for a beautiful portrait like this. I love these sorts of images Don, where you see so much detail. The image is nice and sharp and I love the colours.

[Johan Kruger]

Wow super find Don, I have seen these in captivity but never in the wild. Image is very sharp, love the eye

[Peter Farrell]

Fantastic detail and colors. Beautiful bird.
Peter

[Julie Kenward]

Don, what a beautiful bird...and a neat portrait pose as well. I noticed the intense colors so I checked them in RAW and they were definitely hot in the yellows and greens. I adjusted the saturation to get them back but you were the one that was there - if these look too 'dowdy' then I totally understand. I would also suggest cloning out the stick just below his jaw. The rest of the BG really sets off the bird - beautiful deep greens!

I am loving the beak on this bird...you can tell it gets quite a work out!

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Thks, could you share what the numbers should show so i can go back and learn from this, i would say the colors were brighter to my eye, however, i can see your point, and yes agree on the stick under the jaw, actually missed that, thks don

[Julie Kenward]

Don, I didn't go by "the numbers"...I opened the image in Photoshop RAW and the colors were up the sides of the histogram, meaning they were over saturated. In the RAW software, if you see anything other than black on the triangle at the ends of the histogram it means your colors are so saturated they are losing detail. Now, I don't think yours were too bad but if you look at the yellow in your version of the image you'll see that in places it's a little hard to see the detail of the feathers because it's so yellow.

What I did was go to the hue/saturation tab in RAW and bring down the yellow and green sliders. This brought down the peaks on the far ends. (You can actually see the triangles turn from one of the colors to black. If the triangles are white, that means every color is blocked!) I've found with reds and yellows (the two colors most digital cameras love to oversaturate) that I almost always have to pull them down but I don't always pull them as far as the RAW sliders tell me to because it leaves them flat and highly unsaturated. I bring them down to the point where the triangles turn black and then I push them back up very slowly until I get a color that looks both believable and vibrant.

Hope this helps. If not, ask questions and I'll try to get back to you!

[James Shadle]

In this case it looks like our monitors may not be able to handle all of those intense yellows and reds.

Jules, while the numbers may look good, the re-post looks flat. From my experience with birds like this Don's original post looks very close to what the bird actually looks like.
I checked the luminosity channel in the histogram and it was perfect. Unfortunately sRGB color space does not do an image like this justice.

[Don Lacy]

Thks, could you share what the numbers should show so i can go back and learn from this, i would say the colors were brighter to my eye, however, i can see your point, and yes agree on the stick under the jaw, actually missed that, thks don

Don, The yellows in the image as posted were reading around 253 to 254 in my repost I dropped them down to 250 using a saturation adjustment layer on the yellows only. I settled on 250 because on my monitor it kept them bright but brought them more in line with the rest of the tonalities in the image. Also you need to assign a profile to your image when posting so you can be sure all viewers are seeing the same colors no matter what browser they are using

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Thks Don, not sure i follow you on the "profile", i need to understand this better, I'll call ya, and get the scoop, really like the image, as it is much closer to the actual eye popping colors that left me speechless when this bird landed, and i first saw it!
Cheers:
Don