Earlier this summer I posted some shots of hummingbirds coming to wild cardinal flower. This is another shot in that series. In this image, the bird was displaying to try to fend off a katydid on the flower. The background here is a branch with dead, brownish leaves. This wasn’t a set up. Natural light. There was a thin layer of clouds so my shutter speed was set at 1/800s - much lower than I normally shot at. I was still pretty pleased at the pose and details on the bird - any thoughts on that? I don’t mind the wing blur.
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Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Canon 90D, Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary, tripod
ISO 800, f6.3, 1/800s
OMG Allen - color me green. All this year I tried for a tail-flare shot and didn’t get one. Not even a crappy one. This is so outstanding. I love it and the long antennae stretching out from the flowers. So great. Bravo!! And no, the wing-blur doesn’t bother me in the least. They are so fast it’s hard to freeze those as totally as you have done with the rest of the bird.
A good reward for your effort! The wing blur is fine on both – good use of ambient light! Wonderful BG color. Interesting way the sharp focal plane sliced through the angled bird. The reds are more featureless than I would expect, and, for me, overpower the bird. I wonder if a small variation in WB (play with both sliders) would bring out more detail. Failing that, have a look at a trick I discovered years ago – do a Selective Color layer and go to the Red channel. Increase the Cyans and the Yellows, and maybe bring down the Magentas.
@Diane_Miller
Hi Diane, thanks for the comment. Which photo do you find the reds featureless? In the first one, the flower is out of the focal plane of the bird (focus points were on the bird in each photo). The flower in the second image is more in focus with more features. I desaturated the flower using NIK Viveza 2 in each image. Do you think the flower in the second image needs more work or am I missing your point?
Here’s what I was referring to, which actually looks something like a color cast when corrected. I did a Selective Color layer and went to the Rred channel. I increased Cyan strongly and added a very slight amount of Yellow. The two images needed slightly different slider positions. This also removed a reddish cast in the BG, which makes me think of it as a color cast issue. After this correction I’d probably look at local brightness or contrast changes but I didn’t do that here.
I didn’t play with WB so that may help as a starting point. Red’s are often difficult – they can look flat or featureless without being blown. If I had an urge to desaturate reds in an image, first I would compare the various camera profiles, then I would look at the color cast correction in something like Nik CEP, then resort to the method above.
