Story of the Image
Shooting hummingbirds in flight used to be one of the most challenging types for bird photography in the past but with fast cameras and our ability to understand their behavior photographers have learnt to achieve pleasing shots in controlled environments like this one.
Location and species
This species is endemic to the Atlantic forest of Brazil, which means they cannot be found anywhere else in the world. To photograph this species I traveled to an area called Morretes
Gear/ Preparing the Scene
Shooting hummingbirds in-flight requires a lot of practice. It also requires creating a somewhat controlled environment with a flower set up to attract the bird.
Composing the Shot
The flowers replace a hummingbird feeder where the bird is habituated to visit, and I was ready with my camera and shorter lens to photograph the event.
Perfecting in Post-Processing
Initial camera raw edits:
Step 1:
For the initial edits, I set an auto white balance to bring down the greens.
Then. I adjusted the highlights and shadows to recover the details on the bird.
Next, I added some vibrance to the image.
The next step was to crop the image in the format I liked – vertical.
Next, I ran auto contrast to fix the overall contrast of the image. Auto contrast is a drop down when you select Image on the tools section or shortcut shift+ctrl+b
The next step was the color balance. The addition of reds increases the pink on the flowers while increase in yellows makes the overall image warmer and more pleasing to the eyes.
Next, I added brightness and contrast to the image.
Due to the use of 2 flashes there was a minor ghosting issue, which I fixed in photoshop.
When you mix flash and continuous light, the photographer freezes the subject with the flash, but if a subject is otherwise silhouetted against a brighter background, the remaining exposure will capture strange shadows if there is any sort of movement at all.
Next, I resized the image at 1800 pixels on the long side. It was ready for sharpening.
Next step was to save in the right profile and save the image.
For web prints I use sRGB while for prints I use Adobe RGB
About The Bird
This near-threatened Hummingbird is endemic to Brazil and can be distinguished by its white rump band. It can be categorized in the Hummingbird species group ‘brilliants’ and belongs to the subfamily Lesbiinae. The adult male bird has a brilliant green headdress, a flowing beard with white spots, and a dazzling face and forehead. The young male and female bird lacks these features, with a white throat and dark smudge in the center they resemble a Frilled Coquette except for their buff color face and throat. It feeds on nectar from flowers at different heights and also visits feeders.
