White-necked Jacobin

[Peter Dexter]

Manual Exposure
SS 1/640
Aperture 8.0
ISO 640
HS Flash
Spot Focus

Canon 7D w/400 5.6 and 580 Flash. PP: removed something intruding on the bottom of the photo, some sharpening, Neat Image applied and painted out "steel eye". Tried to burn in the white chest but wasn't happy with the result.

I don't wish this to be a rationalization of poor technique but I find with hummingbird photos that although the standard is perfectly frozen wings sometimes blurred wings provide an appealing sense of movement. I'd like to know what others think about that and of course any suggestions for improvement.

[Matthew Studebaker]

beautiful species. Great detail in the head. I'm seeing a lot of digital jpg artifacts in the background and wish for more detail in the whites

[Richard Stern]

Hi,

I agree with you about maintaining a sense of movement in the wings, but in this image I find the wings too blurred, the whites too over-exposed, and there is noise in the bg. The oof tail is a distraction. But the colours on the head are excellent and the eye looks good.

Richard

[Daniel Cadieux]

It is indeed a beautiful species. Great colours. The background looks very nice, but something went on during resizing which created jpeg compression artefacts as posted (I'm sure it is nice and smooth in your original). You'd have better luck with the whites during raw conversion (if they are not too cooked) as they look too white and solid for the burn tool in PS. As for the wings, I like both types of HB photos.

[Peter Dexter]

Thank you all. Very helpfull observations that I will learn from.