Daily_Junco

[Jess M. McKenzie]

If I did this right, there's an image attached here -- a fairly pedestrian one admittedly, but it's the first one taken with our new, and only 600 mm lens.
Sorry about the wire -- chalk it down to buck fever.
Nikon D70s with Tamron SP 150-600 mm
1/800 s, f9.0, ISO 320, 0 EV
Post processing with PS Levels adjustment mostly to eliminate the noise tails,
then with some NIK subprogs, Dfine2 and Output Sharpener (limited to 30% Adaptive Sharpening and maybe 10% local contrast)
I tried using Viveza 2 to brighten the shadow side;
I think I can read the bird's left eye now, but that may be wishful thinking.

I'd be grateful for any help..... ~jess

[Gianluca Molina]

Great image but:
BG very noisy, reduction needed

is annoying the wire precisely at the center of the subject

[Jess M. McKenzie]

Molte grazie, Gianluca. Your comment made me realize that i had not mentioned that this image was cropped severely (for better composition).
Further, an ISO of 320 usually gives me too much noise with this camera. Even the D70's ISO base of 200 can be too noisy. I now have a D7100 for this lens and will try to capture a similar image for comparison. ... when the sun returns.
My wife agrees with you about the wire placement. She says the image reminds her of a prison yard...;-)
~jess

[Gianluca Molina]

Lol :D



Many complain about the noise of the Canon 7D but I see cheanche nikon no joke at all!

[Gianluca Molina]

I tried to do a "miracle" in post production....

[Jess M. McKenzie]

Grazie di nuovo!!
You have released the prisoner AND reduced the noise.
cordiale saluti.... ~jess

[Glennie Passier]

Hi Jess. welcome. I think you have already noted the problems with your image. The noise is certainly problematic as is the wire running straight down the little birds face. Gianluca has done a good job on both. I can understand your excitement over the new lens! You seem to know your PS and plugins, so I would be of little use to offer any PP tips. Looking forward to seeing more with that new lens!

[Gianluca Molina]

I forgot: to make the post production I used GIMP

[Jess M. McKenzie]

You're very kind, Glennie. I'm not so smart about PP as I may have appeared, so please don't hesitate to throw me a lifeline whenever you see a need for one.

[Diane Miller]

Hi Jess, and welcome! I'm late here and very rushed at the moment. I don't know the Nikon cameras, but you definitely want to use one with the lowest noise and use the best settings to minimize noise. The worst thing you can do is to underexpose and then lighten the image in processing. You want to overexpose as much as possible and bring it down in post -- that will minimize noise. But you need to be careful of blowing out whites.

You say you processed in PS -- was it shot as a JPEG? If it was raw, your initial processing would have been in Adobe Camera Raw, which comes with PS but is not PS. If it is a recent version it will give you good noise reduction and allow highlights to be tamed and darks to be brought up. (You did a good job on the left eye, but the bright white fence is distracting.) NR and sharpening work against one another, so best to shoot a sharp shot with the best exposure for lowest noise.

You want to be careful to get a clean shot of a subject, with very little in front of it, and natural perches are always better than wire fences.

Good work from Gianluca!! But it's better to avoid needing to do much patching as it's never completely natural.

There is lots to be learned her about processing -- read a lot and practice! I look forward to more from you!

[Jess M. McKenzie]

Diane, that's exactly the kind of help I was hoping for. Thanks much.
I shoot everything in Raw. In the old days, i used Bridge, and sending an image from there into PS automatically placed it first to Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
Then I began using LR, which does not get me to ACR, at least not directly. If you have any suggestions for moving images from LR into ACR, *please* share them.
Your comments inspired me to find the original RAW image in Bridge, send it into ACR, thus discovering I had indeed underexposed by 2.75 stops! Thus, as it turns out I sent the wrong image in for critique. I promise to do better.
Thanks to all... ~jess

[Diane Miller]

Lightroom is my favorite software in the whole world! When you first see an image there you will be in the Library module. In the upper right of the screen click Develop and you will have the same engine as ACR but with an easier-to-use interface. You won't see ACR or Bridge in a LR workflow.

In the Develop module all your adjustments are automatically saved -- you do nothing. You open an image in PS with the top menu item Photo > Edit in or Ctrl/Cmd-E.

You need to set up some parameters in LR first with the Preferences menu, and also the Catalog settings. I'm working on a tutorial on the basic use - it isn't finished yet but if you need an overview email me and I'll send you a copy to date.

LR is a little more complex than Bridge, but after some basic setup and understanding, it is very easy to use.