Spectacled Parrotlet

[Peter Dexter]

Manual Exposre
Shutter Speed 1/800
Aperture 7.1
ISO 800
White Balance Auto

Canon 7D with 400 5.6 and 580 Flash

This is a male photographed in Reserva Laguna de Sonso, Valle de Cauca Department, Colombia. It's one of my absolute favorite birding areas for low land birds.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Peter, I love the colour of this bird, especially the beautiful around the eye. Tough setting with the bright sky showing through the leaves, and I do wish for a slightly better HA. Seemingly sharp but your image, as posted, looks to be suffering from some compression artefacts...

[Peter Dexter]

Thank you Daniel. I need to learn abpot compression artifacts. In what area of the photo do you see them? What causes them and how are they avoided?

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Peter,the parrot's greens certainly do stand out from the surrounding foliage greens, and the parrot is sharp.

With regards to the artifacts, did you select only the bird to sharpen, or have you sharpened the whole image. If you have sharpened the whole image, it could create artifacts in the BG.

[Peter Dexter]

Thank you Stuart. I sharpened the whole image. Thanks for the suggestion to sharpen only the bird.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thank you Daniel. I need to learn abpot compression artifacts. In what area of the photo do you see them? What causes them and how are they avoided?

Peter, I can see them in the OOF background areas, and on certain parts of the plumage it created a crosshatching type design (wing). See it also around the edge of the parrot's forehead and the big leaf below the perch. It usually happens because of resizing...sometimes because the file is too large and is "compressed" to make it "fit" for web posting.