The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
A bit softer light for this one. I don’t move the flower pots much so it’s hit or miss sometimes, but if she’s cooperative, I aim the camera at her. I have several of her on this flower, but the wing position and a bit of eye contact made me choose this particular shot. With burst mode there is a lot to pick from! Maybe later today I’ll get to try for more.
Specific Feedback
Ideas for processing welcome or improved field technique.
Technical Details
Handheld on the couch as always
Lr for basic processing - started w/Linear Profile since everything else pushed the highlights out of control. Massaged tonalities w/a lot of contrast, color and work in the calibration panel to bring back the snap. A bit of a crop and then to Topaz Sharpen AI then decided it needed brightening in Lr again.
Absolutely gorgeous, Kris. You’ve had so many excellent images and this one is a fav for me. Even down to the small catch light in the eye here…
Only change might be on some of the highlights but no nit just my likes in processing ideas…
Thanks @Paul_Breitkreuz & @linda_mellor - she is a beauty for sure and I really liked the long line of the flower and her body, but I didn’t notice the V until you mentioned it, Linda. Thanks!
Just now I was out watering the plants and heard one approach - of course the male won’t sit on the flowers when I’m 10 feet away with the camera, but he’ll visit every pot while I’m standing there with the watering can and he was only inches from me. Bratty bird.
Hi Kris, a very well done image. Love the feeding behavior shown and the color/saturation of the flower is just right to compliment the bird and highlight what these birds are most attracted to. Nice diagonals in the image. Fine BG.
I am wondering what you use to convert your Raw files. Image quality looks quite nice with fine detail. I see this was shot at ISO 6400. I use DXO Pure Raw 3 for high ISO images which works well.
Beautiful. Great action photo of the bird, and beautiful color contrast between flowers and background. Nice lines as well. Wonderful image, and no need to travel. What more can you wish?
Thanks @Allen_Sparks & @Han_Schutten - those flowers are the bomb to hummingbirds. They can’t keep their little beaks out of them and so I buy plenty! It’s a plus that they look good against green. Actually, I have to usually take down the saturation and luminance so they won’t look like Gummy Bears. And yeah, parking myself on the deck is no hardship!
I’ve only ever used Lightroom which basically Adobe Camera Raw for working on files straight from the camera. For a 5-year old rig with the smallest sensor of the bunch, it is capable and hold an amazing amount of dynamic range considering those factors. So long as I get a good exposure and tack sharp focus, ISOs as high as 6400 give good results.
For this one I used a linear profile which completely flattens the curve that Adobe’s or Lumix’s RAW profiles add under the hood. Normally I use a Camera matching profile to start with and have set my camera to Natural or Standard so that there isn’t too much contrast or color to start (although I have manually dialed in a curve in camera from time to time, just to boost contrast if needed). But even then it can push things so, using a linear profile brought back highlight detail that I had a feeling would be in there since the clipping indicators are based on jpg settings in camera. That makes a certain amount of sense given that most people use a profile that bakes in a curve.
I find that Topaz Sharpen AI does a really nice job picking up detail and reducing noise in the subject, but I don’t always love what it does to everything else, so I often end up layering it in Photoshop with a denoise DNG from Lightroom. Best of both worlds.
Fabulous! Most of my thoughts have already been said, I just want to add that I love the slight blur of the wings… adds to the feel of action by the hummingbird.
The velocity of a hummingbird’s wing approaches zero at the vertical position like this one shows. I might try to bump up the micro-contrast a small amount to bring out the feather detail. Head is very sharp and the composition is very nice. They do like Cuphea. Well done…Jim
That’s interesting about the wings, @Jim_Zablotny - very cool. I may have another go with the wings. I may have actually softened them just so they wouldn’t look too crunchy.
