White-throated Mountain Gem pair

[Bill Dix]

Captured near a feeder at Savegre Mountain Lodge, Costa Rica last month. C&C appreciated.

D7000 | 80-400VR @ 370mm | ISO 3200 | 1/6400s @ f.7.1 | 0EV | HH | natural light

[Roman Kurywczak]

Whoa Bill! Are those specs right? ISO and SS seem way high given the situation......was it very dark? As is.....the perch looks too bright......and the left upright twig....isn't my favorite. All that being said.....noise looks pretty good as does the interaction. I still may tone down the perch in any case. Looking forward as to why you chose those specs!

[Bill Dix]

Whoa Bill! Are those specs right? ISO and SS seem way high given the situation......was it very dark? As is.....the perch looks too bright......and the left upright twig....isn't my favorite. All that being said.....noise looks pretty good as does the interaction. I still may tone down the perch in any case. Looking forward as to why you chose those specs!

Hi Roman. Specs are almost right: ISO in this case was 2500, not 3200, according to the EXIF. I'll edit the OP. SS is correct. I was doing some experimenting with various ISO's on my new D7000, trying to capture hummers in flight and wanting a high SS. Shooting in Ap, so 1/6400 is what it gave me on this one. (Manual mode probably would have been smarter.) Background varied considerably with just a slight shift of camera position, so sometimes the SS was 1/2000, sometimes 1/6400. The histogram on this one was almost perfect -- just slightly too far right in the red channel. But I agree the perch looks too bright; I'll try to tone it down. Thanks for the comments.

[Greg Basco]

Bill, your tech spec choices make sense to me as I'm sure you were going for action. I agree with the other comments about the perch and some of the distracting elements. if you were at Savegre recently I'm sure you were dealing with some very harsh dry season light so it looks like you did a good job on the exposure. The rainy season started today so now it will be back to dealing with the regular low, cloudy light

Cheers,
Greg

[Bill Dix]

Bill, your tech spec choices make sense to me as I'm sure you were going for action. I agree with the other comments about the perch and some of the distracting elements. if you were at Savegre recently I'm sure you were dealing with some very harsh dry season light so it looks like you did a good job on the exposure. The rainy season started today so now it will be back to dealing with the regular low, cloudy light

Cheers,
Greg

Thanks Greg. Yes, the light was harsh at Savegre last month. This was shot at just before 4PM; shortly after 4 the sun dropped below the treeline behind me, making the hummers look much less brilliant. I experimented with some on-camera flash (not your beautiful multi-flash setups) but I haven't mastered the technique, and had more keepers using natural light.

[Peter Farrell]

Really nice interaction here, Bill. Good detail and color. Agree about the perch. If you have the canvas; I might be tempted to rotate CCW a little, but just a little?
Peter

[Bill Dix]

Bill, your tech spec choices make sense to me as I'm sure you were going for action. I agree with the other comments about the perch and some of the distracting elements. if you were at Savegre recently I'm sure you were dealing with some very harsh dry season light so it looks like you did a good job on the exposure. The rainy season started today so now it will be back to dealing with the regular low, cloudy light

Cheers,
Greg

btw, Greg, I forgot to mention: our birding guide, Fito Downs, said that the two of you play on the same soccer team, and sometimes he accompanies you on your workshops. He's an extraordinary birding guide. I would love to return to CR one day and join the two of you on a workshop.

[Greg Basco]

Hi, Bill. Thanks for the explanation. I agree that on-camera flash becomes tough once the light drops that much. I find the key to be getting your ambient exposure down first so that it would be a pretty good image even without fill-flash. Then add in just the amount of fill-flash you need. This way you'll get a good balance between ambient and flash. In any case, again, I think you handled the natural light well here.

I'm glad to hear you were out with Fito. He's a good guy and a really good birding guide. Hopefully we'll be able to play some more soccer together again once the tour season winds down

Perhaps I'll see you if you come back to Costa Rica -- that would be great.

Cheers,
Greg

[Ofer Levy]

Fantastic behaviour shot! ISO 3200 looks fantastic especially considering a 1200$ body!

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Bill! I lik the interaction you captured here.