I'iwi...Hawaiian Honeycreeper

[Bob Dromgoole]

My first photo post is of one of my favorite birds to watch and shoot. The tiny jewel known as the I'iwi, a Hawaiian Honeycreeper.
I am normally on the east slope of Mauna Loa at 6300' to 7000'.
Here he is on the branch on a Mamane tree, also an endemic Hawaiian species. One of their major food sources.
This was taken in 2009 when I had a canon 50D. I haven't shot much in a year or more due to a shoulder injury, so I'm revisiting
all my photos and working on my PP skills.

6:25 am
Canon 50D
lens 400/5.6
shutter 1/640
av 7.1
iso 100
Small crop, and very minimal PP. No color adjustments.

[Mital Patel]

Bob,

Huge welcome to the great learning place where world over is sharing and learning from each other.

Really a great looking species to photograph. Coming straight no PP looking image seems really good.

You would sure love to watch your ISo settings as for birds i suppose with 50D you could have gone at least 400 to grab some nice sharper details on the bird and the exposure would have been better including the SS.

Way to go bob.

Cheers for the first post and keep posting.

[Bob Dromgoole]

Thanks for the welcome Mital. Very true about the iso, don't know why I've been reluctant to up it. Time to get over that!

[Ron Sprunger]

It's a lovely bird. I like the perch, the head angle, and the raised wing. It looks as if the focus is in the right plane, but the image isn't sharp. Arthur Morris has some suggestions for sizing and sharpening for web on here somewhere -- you might want to take a look. Other things to take a look at would include reducing the highlights on the beak, which you can do with the recovery slider in Photoshop if you're using it, and maybe removing the broken twig in front of the bird and pointing at his head. Also, you can post larger, up to 1024 wide and/or 800 high, which makes it easier to evaluate the image.

It's a great first post. Hope you keep them coming, and if you care to repost with changes, I'd love to see the results.

I downloaded the image, cropped, sharpened, and removed the twig crudely. With apologies, here it is. Ignore the over-saturated color -- that's an artifact of re-exporting it from Photoshop, and I'm not quite clear on what caused it.

Attachment 102257

[Bob Dromgoole]

Thanks for the input Ron. I do see the difference in yours. I have been playing with this image and can't seem to get it to sharpen well. Its as if the red/orange is oversaturated to begin with. I think maybe the camera was overwhelmed with the color...(?) Of course there is the slightly lower than desired shutter speed. I am using Lightroom and Nik plugins. Lightroom has not got a good clone tool, the best I can do is to darken that twig, which is ok.

[Randy Stout]

Bob:

Welcome to BPN. I believe this is the first time I have seen this fellow, always fun to see a different species.

I can see why you like it. Great colors, bill and feet! I like the tighter crop from Ron and the additional sharpening.

In most cases, trying to simplify an image helps. Our brain does better without too many distractions or things competing for our visual attention, other than the subject.

Agree about the ISO. You need to try and find the sweet spot for each camera where the quality is good, but you have enough ISO speed to give shutter speed and aperture flexibility.

Better to have a tiny bit of noise and sharp subject than no noise and a blurred subject due to too low shutter speed.

Look forward to more, and hope your shoulder allows you to shoot again soon.

Cheers

Randy

[Bob Dromgoole]

Hi Randy, Thanks for the welcome and advice.
Better shots will be forthcoming, this quick post was not the best,
but it did underscore my need to increase speed.

[Dan Busby]

Welcome Bob! That's a very nice first post and hopefully will be followed by many more of the exotics you live with every day. The RP improves the detail side of the photo. I also like the tighter crop. I wonder if a bit of work on shadows might reduce the contrast a bit, especially in the area of the bird's right foot. Either way, nicely done.

[Arthur Morris]

Welcome Bob, Good work by the folks above. There is a problem with the REDs being too saturated. I add 7 points of CYAN to the REDs in Selective Color and subtracted 7 points of BLACK from the REDs. Then cleaned up a fw white scars on the branches and toned down the bill with a 100% Linear Burn revealed with a Hide-All mask. All covered in detail in Digital Basics.

Do you know Jack Jeffrey?

[Arthur Morris]

Should have mentioned that I started with Ron's repost so thanks for that Ron. It is hard to see the toned down REDs without a side by side....

[Arthur Morris]

Went a bit more with the REDs....

[Bob Dromgoole]

Thank you Dan and Art. I greatly appreciate your feedback and reworking. Those reds really are something! It is looking better and better.
I'll be sure to read the 'digital basics' link.

[Ron Sprunger]

Artie, I'm puzzled by how oversaturated the reds in my RP were. Didn't have time to address it at the time, but they left PS5 looking ok, and imported to this forum wildly exaggerated. Maybe something to do with color space? Anyway, thanks for cleaning it up. I suspect Bob's problem with Digital Basics (which I also have and consult often) might have to do with using Lightroom instead of PS. The Camera Raw will be the same, but I've never used Lightroom, and don't believe it has all the editing capabilities needed. I could, of course, be wrong...