Chestnut Mandibled Toucan

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Any

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

I went back into the archives to find some older images that I thought had some potential. This is an image from 2017 in Costa Rica. I was there helping a good friend lead a workshop and had the opportunity to photograph toucans one morning at close range. Getting them in flight is pretty tough as there are a lot of trees and flights are pretty short.

I cloned out one distracting tree coming in on the left edge of the frame. The rest of the processing just dealt with luminance and a bit of contrast.

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)

Canon 7D Mark II
100-400mm
1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 640

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Pretty neat shot. I have only seem these guys flying high overhead. I like the really nice incoming pose and colors. It looks like a pretty tough exposure as well. Good for you.

Awesome shot Keith! Good head and wing position and tack sharp. The background is just blurred enough not to be a distraction. Great exposure. I’ve been to Costa Rica and while were there we never saw any kind of Tucans . In fact it was really hard to spot any kind of birds so well done with this.

Beautiful, Keith. Superb detail in the plumage and it is very unusual to see a flight shot of one of these.

Keith: excellent photo. It’s a wall hanger. Richard

Superb flight shot! Nothing to complain about in this image. Well executed!

My first thought was, Wow! You almost never see flight shots of these guys. Details are really nice, especially for 1/1000. I also really like the somewhat detailed background. I think I can make out a couple clone marks on the left, but I wouldnt have noticed had you not mentioned it. My only real critique is that this appears to have a color cast. Using your filter–>blur–>average trick, I came up with the below. Although, what’s a little odd is that if you use the black eye dropper on the darkest plumage, you come out with what you have above. I have never seen these birds, so I am not expert. Just thought the difference was interesting.

Wow, Keith, this is really great. I don’t recall seeing a photo of one of these in flight. The details are really great. :+1:t2: :+1:t2:

Can’t say I’ve ever even had an opportunity to get a toucan flight shot. Very cool, Keith.

Incidentally, this species has changed names twice since it was called Chestnut-mandibled (in the span of only a few years). It’s now the Yellow-throated Toucan. I wish bird people could make up their minds!

Max

Hi Max. Thanks. I even looked it up before I posted, because I thought the name had changed. I found two different sources, one still said Chestnut Mandibled was correct and the other said Yellow-Throated… I’m with you… I wish the bird people would make up their minds!!

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