Gold-Whiskered Barbet

Canon EOS 7D, EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x Extender II @ 700mm, Shutter Priority @ f/6.3 (1/320 sec), ISO 1250, Exposure Compensation: +1, Tripod, JPG from RAW

Although, by his own admission, my guide in Malaysia had little experience with serious photographers and, therefore, it took a while before he understood that I needed at least some ambient light to enable me to capture images of fauna he'd be pointing out, there were at least a couple of occasions where he really came up trumps. And one of those was an afternoon we spent in a somewhat less densely packed area of rainforest than I was becoming accustomed to, where he spotted a pair of Gold-Whiskered Barbets … I have to admit that it took at least another five minutes of his patiently pointing their location out before I could see them too - LOL ;^p

As brightly coloured as this species is, trust me when I say that they're extremely difficult to spot among the leaves, especially seeing as, unless they're taking off, landing, or feeding, they have an uncanny ability to stand so completely still on a branch that you'd swear they were frozen stiff and stuck to it, and they can stay like this for long minutes at a time only occasionally breaking their trance-like state to flick their heads in one direction or another to look at something else.

While the downside to this is of course making it very difficult to spot them in the first place, the upside is they make excellent subject to shoot once you have ;^)

There's no way they didn't know we were there, seeing as several times I'd got one tripod leg or another tangled in undergrowth and was being about as subtle as an enraged bull defending itself in the ring while trying to wrench them free so I could quickly move into a better vantage point, but fortunately these Barbets were much more interested in the fruits of the trees they were flying in for than my dancing about below, which allowed me and my tripod to get relatively close ;^p

I spent just over two hours watching and photographing them coming and going and feeding upon the fruits, the only real challenge was the lighting as per usual; sometimes there'd be hardly any on them while at others, when they hopped to a different position, there'd be far too much glare bouncing off them, particularly the gold-whiskered parts, so I frequently had to change settings.

Anyhow, from a long series of shots there are a few I'm especially happy with, and this is one of them, I hope you like it too :^)

PP: Cropped to about 50%. Other than that, all I did was add some Clarity and Vibrance and naturally some sharpening, oh, and a touch of Surface Blur on the background.

I would like to say one last thing in regard to my cropping. With two of the photos I've posted to date (the previous one in this gallery and one of a Cheetah in the wildlife gallery), the importance of leaving enough space for a “virtual” part of the subject's body (even if it's actually obstructed from view in the frame) was pointed out to me, which is something I am grateful for and a concept I understand and, as a general guideline, one that I now embrace.

With this in mind, I've given considerable thought to whether or not I should increase the size of this crop (there is, after all, plenty more I could add!), but I've chosen to present it as I originally cropped and composed it for the simple reason that I believe in this particular case less IS more; I feel a large part of the charm of the picture (charm being courtesy of Mother Nature more than any real skill of my own!) is in the impression that the subject is tempted by the fruit into come out of hiding, so to speak, and this impression loses strength the more one pans out.

All the same, I'm open to other points of view on this and, seeing as it didn't entail too much PP work, I won't mind making and showing you a larger cropped version if requested.

Thanks for your time and consideration :^)

Kind regards,

Ashley