Story of the Image
This hummingbird species is found in very isolated pockets in a small region of Peru. It is found nowhere else in the world. The Marvelous Spatuletail is regarded as the most beautiful of hummingbirds due to its jewel like tail . For this shot, I traveled to the Huembo Reserve near Pomacochas, Peru to photograph them in their natural habitat.
Gear/Preparing the Scene
Knowing that the light was going to be a challenge, I brought several flashes,stands, and other gear. Upon arrival, most were deemed useless as this was a protected area. Noone is allowed to use flashes or any unnatural light. Given the rarity of this species, I wholeheartedly agree with the decision and decided to shoot with my bare camera and 600mm lens on a tripod. The conservation of a species is more important than our photographs.
Setting up the image was probably the trickiest part of the entire exercise. It took me a few hours to understand the bird’s behavior.Once I understood its pattern, the only way to get a shot was to set up a sugar-water feeder and wait for the bird to hover next to it. I set my camera three inches to the left of the feeder, so it was not visible in my camera frame. In this way, the image looked natural and not photographed as staged. Next, I replaced the feeder with an actual flower to get the desired result.
Composing the Shot
I positioned the flower so I could get a clean green background. Choosing a vertical shot was the only way to get the entire tail of the bird in the frame. As nature photographers, we have to be conscious off our composition while in the field.
Initial Camera Raw Edits
The first step is to fix the White bBlance. For this image, Auto White Balance was the way to go. Not only did it fix the warm tones, but it also brought out the most natural colors on the bird.
Next, I increased the Exposure by +.85 points and the Contrast by +9.
To fix the bright spots, I pulled down the highlights by -5 points and increased shadows by +19.
To get the multiple colors to pop I added +32 points of Vibrance. To be honest, these numbers are just based on my taste and what my eyes are drawn to. There is no general rule of thumb to decide the right number here. That’s what art is all about!
The image was now ready to be edited.
I decided to crop it in a 4:5 aspect ratio and go in closer to enhance the details on those feathers.
This gave me enough megapixels to work with. In this case, the number was approximately twelve.
Once cropped, I started working on the adjustment layers. I added a layer of Brightness and Contrast, increasing both to my desired numbers.
Next, I wanted to selectively edit the background o add more impact to the bird itself. This was done by further cleaning up some of the bright areas to achievea more even looking background. I did this using the Select tool.
As you can see the marching ants gave me a preview that was good but still not perfect.
we choose Select and Mask to feather in those tiny details on the edge of the bird.
Take a look at all the settings in the below image:
Next, select the Refine Edge Brush tool from the control panel on the left. Change the brush size to 75 on the top panel, and start brushing around the edges of the bird.
Now take a look at how perfect the selection is. Inverse your selection using the Select menu in the top toolbar, and brush some of the bright background with a green brush set at 30% opacity. Make sure the background layer is selected and not any other.
As you can see below, the image background looks cleaner after I got rid of the bright spots.
Next, lets add some colors. To do this, I added +23 points of Vibrance to the overall image.
My image is now ready to be resized.
Next step was to add sharpness.
Now it’s time to save it in the right profile.
For web prints, I use sRGB. For physical prints, I use Adobe RGB
The final step is to save it as a JPEG at the highest resolution as shown below:
Final Image
About the Bird
This medium-sized stunning Hummingbird is a native to Peru, they can be spotted at forest edges and remote valley areas. The blue disc or spatules in their tail feathers gives them their name. The male bird has blue crest feathers and a dazzling turquoise speckle on the throat, a black line runs down the center of a white chest and abdomen. The tail of the male bird is longer than the female and has short and drop-shaped rackets. Their tail feathers grow three to four times more than the length of their body.
