Hummingbird in Mexican sage

JCJC Registered Users Posts: 768 Major grins
edited October 6, 2014 in Wildlife
i-xb8TLdj-XL.jpg

Spent the day shooting hummingbirds at the South Coast Botanic Gardens (CA), shot hundreds, got a couple keepers.

Here is one in a classic hummer pose (I like the quirky shots a bit better though).

Question for the forum, how does the white balance look?

This one was shot in jpeg, basically SOOC, white balance 'as shot', although in the ones I shot in RAW, the as shot WB was cooler than the sunlight setting in Corel Aftershot. (Canon 5D II, I haven't really noticed it shooting cool in general). Perfectly clear day, no clouds, pure sunlight.


On my desktop colors look good, on my laptop, they look a little cool (I have noticed my laptop displays cool). I've got some problem running the monitor calibration program in Ubuntu 14.04, (no problems in 13.x), so I haven't calibrated my monitor in quite some time, I need to figure that out, but until I do, how does the white balance on this shot look? I know it's tough with the image so dominated by blue and green. Spot color checker on the white petals gives me a blue bias, but spot color checker on the brightest chest feathers isn't biased to blue.
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Comments

  • StumblebumStumblebum Registered Users Posts: 8,480 Major grins
    edited September 30, 2014
    Nice shot! Love the comp! Looks fine to me! Probably monitor difference, I would have brightened overall shot, just a bit more.
  • SeefutlungSeefutlung Registered Users Posts: 2,781 Major grins
    edited September 30, 2014
    I like it.
    My snaps can be found here:
    Unsharp at any Speed
  • JCJC Registered Users Posts: 768 Major grins
    edited October 1, 2014
    Ok, if the white balance looks ok, here are a couple of more. C&C appreciated. These are all tight crops from a 400mm lens. I want to print a series (for myself), and I'm gravitating to square crops for these.

    2)
    i-rsmdSS8-L.jpg

    3)
    i-J9jZw7k-L.jpg

    4)
    i-bKCXH4q-L.jpg

    5)
    i-xPJQKJb-L.jpg

    6)
    i-hPwqL52-L.jpg

    7) This last one is me testing my manual focus skills with an old Olympus zuiko 90mm lens.
    i-jgvSBf4-XL.jpg
    Yeah, if you recognize the avatar, new user name.
  • StumblebumStumblebum Registered Users Posts: 8,480 Major grins
    edited October 1, 2014
    #4 is fantastic! Love it!clap.gif
    #3 is perhaps the sharpest and with best light and clarity....however, the wings are borderline clipped, and the branch in bottom left corner can be cloned out. JMO.
  • Hunter58Hunter58 Registered Users Posts: 723 Major grins
    edited October 2, 2014
  • bristleconebristlecone Registered Users Posts: 451 Major grins
    edited October 6, 2014
    Nice set JC. White balance looks good to me, color seems right on the flowers. Also like your idea of a series of square crops, post a group shot when you complete them.
    -Len
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