Chestnut-breasted Coronet

[Nate Chappell]

Merry Christmas to everyone! Here's a multi-flash hummingbird photo from our last trip to Ecuador in June. It was taken at Guango Lodge. I found out recently that this will be in the NANPA Showcase next year. Wishing everyone a great holiday season.

MkIII 300F4 1/200 F22 iso 500, 6 slave flashes at 1/16 power

[Randy Stout]

Nate:

A Merry Christmas to you as well.

Lovely image, and I particularly enjoy the subdued flash effect. Many of the hummer photos, although beautiful, look overflashed to me. Very often the foliage is too bright and dominates the bird. This image has a very nice exposure balance.

As a small thing, I might be tempted to try a version with the left most leaf removed, to simplify the cluster at the top a bit.

Cheers

Randy

[Aidan Briggs]

Looks good here Nate! Congrats on making it in the showcase!! One minor thing, you might try removing the extra catchlight.

Well done!!

[Arthur Morris]

Well done on all counts as noted above. A crop from the top would eliminate much of the effect of the clutter of leaves.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I love the deep rich colours, and the "floating in air" pose. Beautiful BG (natural?). I personally like the crop as is, but the suggestions offered sound good too.

Merry Christmas to you too, Nate!

[Nate Chappell]

Thanks for your comments, the bg is artificial, with these camera settings it would be very dark otherwise. The artificial background was created by taking an out of focus photograph of flowering rhodedendrens and then printing it and securing it to a piece of matboard.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for your comments, the bg is artificial, with these camera settings it would be very dark otherwise. The artificial background was created by taking an out of focus photograph of flowering rhodedendrens and then printing it and securing it to a piece of matboard.

Nate, Just for the record book, the BKGR was not rendered properly because it is artificial, it was rendered properly because it was positioned relatively close to the feeder where it could be properly lit by your flash(es).