Brown Hares

[Jonathan Ashton]

Canon 7D Canon 500mm F4 L IS & 1.4TC Mk1 ISO 800 1/1600 sec f5.6
Another boxing shot, hope you like it. I did a little Photoshop wrok here; I brushed the background a little to reduce contrast, I applied a broad USM on the hares to enhance contrast a little, I reduced the highlights on the Jack ( the one on the RHS) and I applied NR to the background. I tried to minimise the cropping in order to retain image IQ; (cropping ISO 800 7D files = not a great idea) Oh yes I enhanced the eye of the Jack just a tad.
After several attempst varying sharpening and presharpening I produced an A3 image but I am not a happy bunny - need better light ........or a better camera:w3 and probably better PS skills and better field craft, the list goes on!
All comments welcome

[Diane Miller]

Excellent sharpness and detail, for me. I love the line of sharp focus in the grass.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Jonathan - I'm enjoying all these boxing action shots you've been posting and this one is no exception. Good pov, timing and I think your contrast adjustments have worked well. Only 2 minor points from me - I'd prefer more room below if you have it and there are 2 specular highlights near the middle right edge that I would get rid of.

TFS,
Rachel

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Jonathan, love those image :bg3:
I might would get rid of the grass in the left rabbit's behind :w3 overall I like it very much.

Have a greet weekend

Ciao
Anette

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jonathan, I really like this, although perhaps having the 'rear' not so in view might have been better, but you have to take your chances, and a lot better than I have!

Colour overall looks better too, but just watch the amount of NR you apply. I too would like to see more image area below if you have it, then just move the whole crop down.

If this isn't a huge crop the at A3 you should be fine, just remember you have to apply some sharpening from your FINAL hi res file for each output after cropping and this may vary depending on size & medium ie print.

TFS
Steve

[Angad Achappa]

Hi Jonathan, this i really like. The action captured here is great and that's some good light.

Regards,
Angad

[Jonathan Ashton]

Steve I have special individual sharpening regimes for prints and PDIs and I produce "ring arounds" to determine the optimal pre-sharpening determined by A) ISO and B) paper. My biggest problem was that the OOF grass looked dirty and gritty even after NR and too much NR makes everything structureless,.

[Steve Kaluski]

Ooh, sounds very technical, even at 800, must be the 7D. :w3

[John Ippolito]

This is an excellent series, Jonathon. Love the action, POV, overall colors, and the awsome mid-air pose of the hare on the right.

Best luck working on the final print. Sometimes the biggest challenge is deciding the best paper surface to go with.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks very much for the C&C everyone.
I think 12x10 is about as big as I can go to make decent quality

[Morkel Erasmus]

Great action here Jonathan... :5
Looks good as presented here, but your print image should be the guideline. Perhaps you can get some more out of that 7D with better RAW workflow...perhaps Rachel could send you the 7D workflow I passed on to her which worked quite well for me when I was still using Canon gear...:S3:

[Jonathan Ashton]

Great action here Jonathan... :5
Looks good as presented here, but your print image should be the guideline. Perhaps you can get some more out of that 7D with better RAW workflow...perhaps Rachel could send you the 7D workflow I passed on to her which worked quite well for me when I was still using Canon gear...:S3:

Morkel I am always keen to learn and I am flexible about processing. The Philip Perold sharpening techniques you recommended have become routine practice for me for web images and I have several modified versions so I can produce 600, 800,1024, 1200 and 1400px versions at the touch of a button.

Rachel if you would care to share I would be most grateful.

Jon