Closeup of an owl eye

[Bob Miller]

I took this at a rehabiltation center for raptors. Have I oversharpened?
Nikon D-3s
ISO 3200
1/160 sec at f11
200 mm macro

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Bob. I like what you're trying to do with this eye closeup, but the IQ is not working for me on this one. Not having seen the original, I'm guessing there is some noise in the image that is not helping - when one of my images has an eye that looks "gritty" I will apply some nr to smooth out that gritty look - otherwise sharpening just makes the noise more evident. There may be other things going on here, too - it will be interesting to hear what others have to say. :S3:

[Norm Dulak]

Hi Bob.

Like Steve, I agree that your effort to capture the eye is commendable. But I don't know whether the "grittiness" problem is due to noise or to over sharpening artifacts, or to a combination of the two. It may be that your concern over possible over sharpening may be warranted. I would go back to the original file and reduce the amount of sharpening, to see what that might yield. I'd like to see the result.

Best regards,

Norm

[Jonathan Ashton]

Bob, looking at the image I get the impression there may be a combination of factors:
1 High ISO - noise
2 Was it a crop if so the noise would be magnified
3 Possibly over sharpened
Having said that I think it was a good idea and the image is very interesting from a compositional point of view.