At Lamanai, Belize in late Feb. I took this in deep shady undergrowth with Nikon D300, Tamron 200-500 lens, ISO 3200, Raw, 1/20, f6.3, no flash, handheld but braced against a convenient tree trunk - later cropped and pp'd in LR, and run through Noise Ninja - then some of the bg highlights darkened using highlights/ shadows in PSE3. I thought the head angle was right, and the straight lines in the bg contrasted with the bird enough that they weren't too distracting from the overall image. I left the branch on the right in. Hopefully I'm beginning to learn something here! C & c welcome.
Hi Richard,
I like this little guy. I would recommend cloning out the branches to the right of the bird, and the branch to the upper left. They distract from the overall composition. Everything looks good. Very nice shot...:D
Hi Richard You have some nice tech info there Brutal conditions Would have used a flash if available In conditions like that I go to flash as main if enough light can be thrown at the subject !!!!
Agree on cloning the branch to the right Very interesting composition !!!
Hi, and thanks. I did try to photograph this bird using flash, but I couldn't get a decent angle, or the subject to keep still. Finally when I did get an unobstructed view, and the bird stayed still for a few seconds, I tried it without flash, and the result (only this 1 image was half-way acceptable) was actually better exposed than those with flash. I think I was just lucky with the tree brace and hand-holding in those conditions. I agree with comments about cloning.
Tawny-winged Woodcreeper
