dowitcher

[arash_hazeghi]

A shot from this evening, not much activity. I think this is a short-billed dowitcher but I am not as good at id'ing birds. I let Artie to make the call


shot with the A1 and 200-600 at 600mm. f/6.3 ISO-1250 1/4000 sec handheld processed with C1P. I had to compress the image quite a bit to make it under 600KB. The original has mind blowing amount of detail I wish you could see.

[gail bisson]

Yes, it is a short billed.
Lovely wing position and terrific light as usual.
If mine, I would clone out the second catchlight.
Did you work on the white stripe going down the back? It looks a bit grey to me.
Another superb BIF,
Gail

[Kurt Bowman]

Very nice wing position on this. Like the warm colors with water BG. Nice work!

[annmpacheco]

Hi Arash, this BIF image seems a bit lacking in IQ compared to most of your images. It appears slightly crunchy, and i know it is somewhat wet. The face has less detail and slightly oof... And its not my monitor, just my opinion. Is it a good inflight yes , but not one of your greatest... Top of the back looks "processed..." uh oh.... TFS

[John Mack]

Looks great. I like how the bird is right above the water.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Arash, this BIF image seems a bit lacking in IQ compared to most of your images. It appears slightly crunchy, and i know it is somewhat wet. The face has less detail and slightly oof... And its not my monitor, just my opinion. Is it a good inflight yes , but not one of your greatest... Top of the back looks "processed..." uh oh.... TFS


hi Ann all I can tell you is that this is the sharpest BIF image I have made to date. So your comments makes no sense from where I am looking at the image. I don’t know what’s wrong on your side. Sorry I can’t help you. And no the bird isn’t wet at all. The only thing I can think about is that you're using a consumer Mac and need to press CMND and - key a few times to defeat the display scaling.


best

[annmpacheco]

hi Ann all I can tell you is that this is the sharpest BIF image I have made to date. So your comments makes no sense from where I am looking at the image. I don’t know what’s wrong on your side. Sorry I can’t help you. And no the bird isn’t wet at all. The only thing I can think about is that you're using a consumer Mac and need to press CMND and - key a few times to defeat the display scaling.


best
nothing wrong on my side, we just disagree.

[arash_hazeghi]

nothing wrong on my side, we just disagree.

Feel free to disagree, but only one us can be correct, I will post a 100% crop later. I Bet it will quite amusing once you see it. I wonder what you will say.

[Paul Burdett]

Not much to add, but I will say that my first impression was "over sharpened" (especially the head) but maybe it's just the web size compression or the A1's ability?

[arash_hazeghi]

here is the 100% unsharpened crop from RAW from the head and the wing where you can count individual feathers. My previous static shots didn't have this much detail for sure. I don't think anyone can post a 100% unsharpened crop from raw that is any sharper.

coarse and crunchy.... :w3LOL I think these crops speak for themselves.

[arash_hazeghi]

Not much to add, but I will say that my first impression was "over sharpened" (especially the head) but maybe it's just the web size compression or the A1's ability?

Hi Paul , several factors affect how we perceive sharpness, there are scientific objective ways to characterize and measure sharpness in the lab but that's not what we discuss here. the human perceived sharpness typically depends on

1.instrument factors :
a. display instrument i.e the monitor. the resolution and the contrast ratio of the monitor directly impacts how we perceive and image, which is just a rendering of an original. similar to listening to the same track on different stereos.
b. display scaling : some of the modern 4K/5K displays like the ones on consumer PC and Mac products use this technology to make low-resolution mages fill the high resolution screen. it's basically digital up-sampling or enlarging. some images respond well to this feature some don't. It is possible to turn it off. Professional displays do not use display scaling feature
c. compression : the higher the compression the lower the MTF or the sharpness, images that are sharp and detailed edge-to-edge are harder to compress as they contain more information (e.g. images from high resolution cameras, one with bird large in the frame and completely in focus).

human factors
a. eye sight: this factor is very important and changes as we age, what one person perceives as sharp may be perceived as soft by another person. This discrepancy becomes larger when viewer encounters a subject they have not seen in real life. our brains our designed to compare with the known. when there is no reference the perception maybe wrong.
b. distance to screen and myopia. depending on the type of eyeglasses you wear if your monitor is not at an ideal distance you may not see images as "tack sharp"



if you do have a large 4K/5K monitor take a look at the large size you can view a much larger file and see how it comares at the link below, you will need to switch to full screen to make sure it is not resized. https://ari1982.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Avian/Shorebirds/Godwits-and-Curlews/i-GBMvNqT/A

best

[Arthur Morris]

Love the full downstroke flight pose and the incredible look at the spread tail. Based solely on the tail pattern, the bird is absolutely a Long-billed Dowitcher as the dark bars are several times wider than the light bars. There are other more technical differences as well. ID was confirmed by Richard Crossley and Julian Hough, two Brits who really know their stuff.

with love, artie

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks Artie that’s definitely easier than going by bill length!