Black Guan Portrait

[Doug Brown]

Even though these birds have ordinary black plumage, their beaks and eyes are spectacular! Here's a simple portrait taken after a light rain. Photographed in Costa Rica.



Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm + 1.4x, f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 1600, manual exposure, fill flash, tripod

[Stu Bowie]

Doug, Good fill flash, very subtle, but it has brought out the detail in the black plumage very well. The blue on the bill is very striking, and together with the red eye, makes this guy very attractive. Overall, the sharpness is tops, and the droplets from the rain adds even more to the image. Well captured.

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely composition Doug and very nice to see.

If mine, I probably would have cropped some off left, which would have been a mistake. I think the space really works well.

I like the nice curves in the bird as well as the bg.

Top notch.

Dave

[Humberto Ramos]

Great portrait, nice BG lovely color and detail, perfect...

[allanrube]

+1 on what others have said. I am on the fence as to whether some should be cropped from the left???

My only nit is the top right bg. The division between the light and darker seems too harsh.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Doug, Stu said what I wanted to and in a much better way. Outstanding shot. You deal with the blacks perfectly.

[Doug Brown]

My only nit is the top right bg. The division between the light and darker seems too harsh.

That's the result of JPEG compression. I've yet to figure out a way to make that go away. The BG itself is unprocessed, other than some NR.

[Jeff Dyck]

Very nice Doug - what a delightfully alien looking bird! I like the crop as it is. The overall image looks pretty dark on my monitor - could the midtones be bumped up a bit and still have the image retain a realistic depiction of the bird?

[Morkel Erasmus]

excellent use of flash here Doug, and my what exquisite details and colours here!

[Alan Lillich]

Gorgeous. I would not call that "ordinary black", I see lots of nice green and blue - nice even if it might be reflections of ambient light color. I'm guessing the sparkle in the water drops is from the flash?

[Doug Brown]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The sparkle was most likely from the flash Alan.

[Katie Rupp]

Even though these birds have ordinary black plumage, their beaks and eyes are spectacular! Here's a simple portrait taken after a light rain. Photographed in Costa Rica.



Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm + 1.4x, f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 1600, manual exposure, fill flash, tripod

Ordinary black plumage maybe, but I'm still working on mine to get a look as good as this!

[Doug Brown]

Ordinary black plumage maybe, but I'm still working on mine to get a look as good as this!

Your Guan images look great Katie! Thanks for the compliment.

[Harshad Barve]

This image wants me to be in Costa Rica Doug , excellent details and flash work , top notch shot
TFS