Cormorant profile

[Andrew Harrell]

For your viewing and C&C .... trying to do a profile shot, this of a Cormorant

162446

Sony a77, Tamron 150-600, 600mm, f6.3, 1/500sec, ISO 200

In LR CC: I think I increased Exposure slightly, and Shadows. Cropped pic from all sides, mainly bottom.

In PS CC: removed some fur fuzz from beak (lasso tool, content aware fill)

Ran through Nik Sharpener Pro 3: Output Sharpener. Increased sharpness

Ran through Nik DFine to reduce noise.


I am playing with the NIK suite of products. Have used DFine with good success, but fist time with Sharpener. This product gives you more options to play with in sharpening amounts, details, etc. As for the pose, this is exactly how he had his neck/head when I took the shot. I did not rotate it .... should I have?

Well, appreciate any thoughts you might have. :S3:


AP

[Michael Thompson]

Wow, that eye is really cool on this one, nice capture. May be a hint of motion blur, I cannot tell for sure. Bumping up your iso a bit would allow you a faster shutter speed. ~ MT

[Robert Kattanek]

I really like those up-close shots of birds, maybe because you don't see them often. So well done on getting that shot. :S3:
Exposure and shadows look very good to me, as do the colours in the (especially) eye and beak. Personally I might have left a little less room on the left, but that may just be me.
Especially with all the sharpening you mention, the image still seems a bit soft, which may be due to the motion blur Michael mentions.
I don't know how well the A77 with the Tamron lens performs at hand holding/image stabilization, but 1/500s at 600mm seems like it could induce the aforementioned blur.
With ISO 200, I would think you would have plenty potential to try faster shutter speeds in these situations.

Thank you for sharing this very nice Cormorant (our fishermen don't like them, but I'm a fan),

Regards,

Robert

[Adhika Lie]

Very very nice, AP. I love the clean headshot here, too. I agree on the motion blur and you definitely still have latitude on ISO. But here is a question. Do you run Sharpener first and then Dfine? If I understand this correctly, run Dfine first and then sharpen it (i.e. NR first and then Sharpening). The other way round undoes the effect. Another point is, at ISO 200, you don't really need to run NR as the noise should be pretty low. Keep in mind, NR squashes details.

[Warren Spreng]

Nice shot AP! Nice details and tough to do with a black bird! The eye is terrific, colors look good too.

[Andrew Harrell]

Thanks everyone! I think I want to put together some kind of collage of shorebird eyes -- the reds of the Ibis and Spoonbill, the blue-green here, etc etc ........

Adhika: Think you are right about the order of things (NR then Sharpen) and about no need at ISO 200. I'll keep your points in mind for the next go.

Gotta really concentrate on getting SS up to 1250 or higher to eliminate that as a cause for softness. After that, it's probably HH techniques, and only after that the lens!

Also, in PS CC I need to learn how to work in Layers and Masks better. I keep picking out images where I don't have to do much background work, but I've seen what Adhika and Glennie have done with some of their shots, turning not-so-pretty backgrounds into very lovely soft BGs .....


AP

[Krish Naidoo]

Really nice pose Andrew. Lots of nice detail especially from the eye forward.


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[Adhika Lie]

Also, in PS CC I need to learn how to work in Layers and Masks better. I keep picking out images where I don't have to do much background work, but I've seen what Adhika and Glennie have done with some of their shots, turning not-so-pretty backgrounds into very lovely soft BGs .....


Believe me, I also pick photos where I don't have to do much BG work. All those photos that need BG work pile up and I only work on them if I get a perfect cup of coffee in the morning and the star lines up properly. Admittedly, this is not the ideal way of doing things, AP. Getting this right in camera is the best way to do it. But, sometimes we don't have any choice. I don't want to open a new can of worm, but photos with edited BG like that would not qualify for competitions or the likes. I, for one, do not want to deal with what Steve McCurry is undergoing right now. Thank goodness, I am not on the photojournalism business.

[Keith Swindell]

Great detail in the feathers and eye, I think the head position looks appropriate for a cormorant.

[Diane Miller]

Very nice find! I love these portraits!! All is perfect for me except the softness. There is just no good way to sharpen a soft image. There are somewhat batter ways to reduce noise. Trying to do both is almost always going to degrade an image.

The most important thing you can do is to concentrate on getting the sharpest image possible. It's a small sweet spot between high enough SS, low ISO for small details not lost in noise, and enough DOF. But accurate AF is the starting point. Heat shimmer is something you don't have much control over except to get close.