I spent the last weekend at 2 different nests in 2 different mountain ranges in SE AZ. Not as many good shots as I had hoped but that's to be expected.
This is a male that perched before he brought the food to the 2 young in the nest cavity. I chose this one to post as I liked the way he was looking at the cavity above him and the background was not cluttered. I was able to climb up the steep slope adjacent to the nest and get a low angle which I liked. But trogons do nest in thick areas so had to use fill flash which I had hoped to avoid.
I think this image does not show too many signs of the flash but if some of you pros have some processing suggestions I'll be glad to apply them. They are a gorgeous rare bird here in the US and already excited about spending more time with them next year when I'm not teaching summer school.
Canon 7D with 500 F4, !SO 640, manually set at 5.6 and 1/250 sec, FF - 1 stop,
Last edited by Stan Cunningham; 06-13-2012 at 11:38 PM.
Hi Stan, I'll take a stab at some tweaks...you might try warming up the colour temp a bit to reduce the effect of that blueish fill flash, I would also try to desaturate the reds on the belly a bit as they look like they've lost some detail. I think another round of sharpening on the whole bird, but especially on the head, eye and grub would improve the image as well. Was the angle from your position to the bird fairly steep, or is that an optical illusion due to the head angle?
Wow, I had no idea this species existed in the US. Spectacular bird indeed.
Great job finding him and getting an image on a fairly nice perch, against a clean bg. I bet you can't wait for next summer.
Nice feedback from Bruce.
In addition, I'd remove the bright area in the ULC. Do you have one with the bird slightly to the left in the frame?
I don't know what this bird's eye looks like, but it appears to have a slight red/steel eye from the flash which I'd try to address.
Congratulations not only on this rare find but on a keeper of this rarity. Looking forward to more.
Last edited by Sidharth Kodikal; 06-14-2012 at 01:04 AM.
Very nice, the only American Trogon I have not yet seen! I was reading they are quite ecotourist attract in AZ
Good points made already; hope you post more
Excellent find!! Great advice already, and I may add a touch of contrast too (or simply more blacks to the darks) and smooth out the tan OOF area touching the perch near the feet. Bonus prey item is cool, and the vertical presentaion was an obvious good choice, excpet for bird placement that needs to be more to the left.
Thanks folks for comments. Tried to incorporate most of the comments on the repost. I think I overbrightened the bird with Viveza my first round which gave it more bluish tinge than the flash.
Bruce I was actually a little above him so his looking at the cavity above him to the right gives it that look. I think moving him to the left helped. I was avoiding a nasty knot of twigs which is why the original was that way but it cloned out better than I thought I would be able to do.
Richard, they are a big appeal, several people knew about one of the nests I was at as it was right on a popular trail at Madera Canyon. I'm not sure than many that that walked by the other saw the nest or even me. And that includes the sow black bear and cub that walked just underneath night 1.