Male Ruby Throat

[jack williamson]

Please critique as hard as you like. I need the feedback.

Nikon D300, 70-300 f4.5-5.6 VR, focal length-270mm, manual ss 1/250, f9, iso 320

SB900 flash set manually to 1/64 power at about 6-7 ft

Minor adjustments in acr, cs3

[George Cottay]

Very nice shot.

I like the perfectly focused bird much better than the mostly gray background but understand only too well how that happens.

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Jack;

Well done, a nice capture of a Hummer in flight. I like every thing about it. To nit pick, I would remove extra catch light & add to bg in front of your lovely photographed bird.

Happy New Year

Gus

[Dave Leroy]

Well done. Nice pose and sharp as well.

Too bad about the closest wing sort of being in our face. I might add a bit of space, particulary in fron to bird to give a bit more room.

Also may want to add some colour and/or vobrance to give a bit more pop.

Good for you to get so close and good use of flash.

Dave

[jack williamson]

Thank you all for your comments. The gray bg is a white outbuilding about 15ft away. Gus I never even noticed

the two catchlights in the eye. I did not mention that this is a small crop from the bottom and the front. In front

of the bird was a feeder that I cropped out and cloned. I agree I cropped to close to the bird.

Jack

[Julie Kenward]

Jack, you already heard from the "crop police" (thanks, Gus!). You have a very nice HA and good details from head to toe. The wing blur doesn't bother me because these little ones are lightning fast. I do think the wing position is a bit of a killer, though. Getting it up or down and not midway are the strongest options as they give us a clearer view of that front wing. If you're not shooting in burst mode you might give that a try so you can choose the best of the 20 as he goes by.

Also, you have a clone remnant (looks like a diagonal line right behind the head and moving to the BG) that needs to be smoothed over. One good lesson is to always clone twice...one at full strength and one at 50% to make sure the BG gets well blended and no remnants remain.

Very nice work on the hummer...keep it up if the opportunity presents itself!

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Jack;

You did a good job in photographing the hummer in flight. If you are using CS5, the new Content-Aware is magic, and will take out a feeder seamlessly. If remenants are left they also can be removes easity. If you don't have CS5, I would rather cover a feeder using Quick Mask than cloning. Robert OToole has a great CD, Aptats1 that is sold on Artie's website and is very easy to understand. He also has Aptats2 now for sale.

Keep up the good work

Happy New Year

Gus
email Robert at robert@robertotoolephotography.com

[Brendan Dozier]

Awesome detail and sharpness on the hummer. Agree with suggestions to improve.

[jack williamson]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. Julie I don't know what that line is behind the bird as I did

no work back there. I think it is actually a wing blur where his wing was a nanosecond before. These little

birds are so fast that at that close of a distance I think they see the aperture closing down before the shutter

closes and he was actually starting to back away from the feeder. The cloning was done in front of him.

Thanks all.