Amethyst Sunbird II (PAW 3/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by Kroburg:
Nice pic again, I had to look quite a while to see the bird is actually upside down (the head looks normal, but she's twisting her head I suppose). Amazing that you still have motion blur in the wings while using a shutter speed of 1/1250s.
It must be amazing to be that close to these birds and be able to take pictures like you do.

As for the D7000, I think it is a great camera indeed. High ISO up to 1600 is not a problem (depends a bit on the background). The fact you're avoiding Vivid Mode indicates you're shooting in JPEG, not in RAW? As you probably know, you can adjust the settings for the different Picture Control Modes to your likings.

Amethyst Sunbird II (PAW 3/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by HarveyG:

Originally posted by Abra: Terrific capture! I really like the motion blur and colours. A suggestion would be to isolate the background and reduce the intensity of the fluorescent green. The bokeh otherwise is beautiful.

I actually have an edit with the fluorescent reduced but posted this one to see if that would come up. It did :)

Amethyst Sunbird II (PAW 3/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by kasaba:
Lovely Harvey
I also like the stillness of the head and the motion in the body, and I think it is lovely to see a part of her nest. Very nice capture.

Amethyst Sunbird II (PAW 3/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by Abra:
Terrific capture! I really like the motion blur and colours. A suggestion would be to isolate the background and reduce the intensity of the fluorescent green. The bokeh otherwise is beautiful.

Amethyst Sunbird II (PAW 3/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by MacDonald:
What a beautiful bird - congrats on the firsts as well! I too like the wing showing motion and it will be a treat to see what other photos you have taken of her.

Amethyst Sunbird II (PAW 3/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by herfotoman:
Looks like an old geezer. hehe. Nice to increase your tally of sightings. I also like the increased motion from the head to the tip of the wings.

Amethyst Sunbird I v1 (PAW 2/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by tvsometime:
Fascinatingly natural image that's appropriately amplified by your informative description. Knowing the difficulties of of such a shot I'm not bothered by the grain or minor sharpening artifacts.

Amur Falcon (PAW 1/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by sfalice:
HarveyG, you are a master at bird photography and it is a pleasure to watch you get 'even better.'

Obviously, with this image it is a matter of what you are going for. Environment, hunting, identification, or? I would be amazed to find all three in one image. You may just pull it off.

In this one, I found it wonderful to note the pattern of the feathers, the eagerness of the head/eye expression and the position of the tail and talons.

The beauty of the background is a given.

i have no conclusions to make on this image. And I bet you don't either! (joking)

Amethyst Sunbird I v1 (PAW 2/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by Ann:
I really like love the composition of this the bird in its native habitat, doing his natural birdy stuff. Watch the edge sharpening around the bird. It was the first thing I noticed when I opened the page. The problem is that the body of the bird and the edges of the bird almost always need different amounts of sharpening. What I find myself doing over and over is sharpening the bird a lot, to get the definition in the feathers, then using a mask and black brush to brush back the sharpening around the edges of the bird. The more contrast the bird has with the background, the more necessary this seems to be.

Amethyst Sunbird I v1 (PAW 2/52)
by HarveyG

Comment by bassbone:
A wonderful image - the darkness of these guys makes them very hard to get details, and you have done a very good job to both set the environment as well as give is the details of the eyes and splashes of color. well done.