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Thread: Annas Hummingbird - Perched Pose

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    Default Annas Hummingbird - Perched Pose

    Shot this yesterday in the afternoon. Sky was overcast so I bumped the ISO a bit. No fill, just natural light. The angle isn't quite eye-level. The closest place I could get a clean angle to the perch was standing on a narrow curb, with the sun shining slightly towards me from the left side.

    For processing, I needed to reduce some noise. The white areas on the right side of the picture were a bit bright and needed to be adjusted down (in Viveza). For emphasis I added some slight vignetting.

    Specs: Nikon D300s; Nikon 300mm (f/4) (with Kirk tripod collar), Manfrotto monopod, Benro ballhead; f/6.3, 1/640 sec., ISO 900, Exposure bias +0.3

    Comments welcome.

    Pete



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    Super Moderator Daniel Cadieux's Avatar
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    That is quite an elegant pose you got from your subject here, and I especially like the ruffled belly feathers. Exposure looks good, and the details are nice except they've been smoothed out by your NR in parts of the hummingbird (tail, wing, part of face). Boy I wish you could manouevre towards your right to eliminate the bright spots and introduce more colour to the BG, but I realize it may not ahve been possible from your description.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Daniel Cadieux View Post
    That is quite an elegant pose you got from your subject here, and I especially like the ruffled belly feathers. Exposure looks good, and the details are nice except they've been smoothed out by your NR in parts of the hummingbird (tail, wing, part of face). Boy I wish you could manouevre towards your right to eliminate the bright spots and introduce more colour to the BG, but I realize it may not ahve been possible from your description.
    Hi Daniel,

    Thanks - I was very happy with the pose but this was a tough one to really frame properly. There is more greenery behind the bird (in the left part of the frame), but to get it I would need to step to the right - unfortunately that would mean hopping off the cement curb I was standing on, so the shots would be very much from underneath. The male hummingbirds come back to that perch pretty often so I'll be exploring other ways of getting a better angle. I'll need to stand on something if I want an eye-level shot. I'm also walking a bit on one leg at the moment (just had hip surgery) so I'm not real mobile yet.

    As for the processing - I agree, it's a bit overdone in spots. I reduced noise within LR, so can reverse pretty easily. I also use Dfine for noise reduction, though for some reason have a harder time controlling the noise adjustment with that (always seems to be too strong), so I've been just using LR for that lately. The shot is also cropped a bit so I have some room to work with. When I get a chance to re-work it I'll re-post.

    Pete

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