Twilight Poser...

[David Roach]

EOS R6 RF 100-500 RF 1.4xtc @631 f10 1/800 iSO 25600 HH, Manual EXP, cropped for portrait from vertical

On the way home on bike ride tonight and spotted this poser after sunset. Used guard rail as a blind and crawled close. It was getting dark but the sky still had the sunset afterglow which was reflected off water below this beauty. Upped the luminance and chrominance noise one notch from default in DPP to help deal with high ISO noise which was very uniform. Also one round of NI on BG only. Used Topaz to sharpen as it's pretty good retaining details while handling noise during sharpening.

[Randy Stout]

David:

Good pose, colors, soft background. The bill looks sharper than the head, whether from focusing point or noise reduction. I would try a sliver more sharpening on the head. Pretty amazing how far ISO performance and noise reduction software has come in the last few years.

Comp is nice.

Cheers

Randy

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi David, good for you in pushing the ISO, 25k isn't new to Andreas or myself, but great to see you having the confidence to push the camera.

I prefer this crop/capture to the previous posting and the green acts as a nice backdrop.

Regarding the image I think the capture was under exposed and the image looks lifted, plus it does have a slight magenta cast, so just warming the Temp up and going more Green on the Tint value will I feel creates a better WB, but obviously I appreciate your circumstances and I'm away so using the laptop so I can only base my thoughts via the numbers. Dodging & burning over the bill and part of the head also helps. It does need some more NR and there is a hint of colour noise in the lower plumage, but PS is far better for sharpening than TP, but your call David. No idea on the true colour of the subject, but again, a little more saturation in the bill may help?

Hope the attached helps and you can see the changes as discussed above.

TFS
Steve

[Arthur Morris]

I thought that it looked pretty good for ISO 2500 Then I read more carefully! Well done. Even better is the spot-on image design as these are often awkward. Ans Steve's repost improved it.

with love, artie

[arash_hazeghi]

love the comp and the head angle but IQ doesn't cut it for me, original too soft and noisy and Steve's repost is an improvement but still no cigar...looks smooth like a watercolor painting on my screen.... I never use ISO25K. not enough photons and Topaz cannot cheat physics ....I'd delete this one and go back in better light :)

TFS

[David Roach]

Just got back and wanted to thank all you astute gentlemen for the valued inputs. I am lucky to have these unique beauties near home and do have many images in great light but I loved this beauty standing alone in the coming dark. Love your repost Steve and you are correct I didn't quite push far enough right. It was right and is pulled down for this version but didn't push off further than the histogram advised as you have taught me. Like the bump in contrast on the repost but would not make it as warm for the situation. Somewhere in between would be better and truer to the dark conditions for me. Arash, I hear you. Sometimes, for me, details and perfect IQ aren't the only goals. It was the solitary stance and coming dark I liked in this image. So, I will keep it till next similar opportunity to apply all of your advice.
Said I was lucky to have these shy beauties near. Even more so to have all your inputs...

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi David, with most scenes you always have time, so take a shot and review the histogram either on the LCD or in the EVF. Your call as to whether it's the Brightness or the RGB values, but choose 'Big', as getting this correct will make PP a breeze and even with high ISO like 25k, the noise is manageable. You have the better camera for noise and really the images are so clean from the 1DX3 which is the same for the R6, so just have faith, but and there is always a but..., sometimes depending on the capture you can reduce the ISO and know within PP you can lift the image and this can be the better option, but you need to know when to do this to retain the dynamic range.

[David Roach]

...but you need to know when to do this to retain the dynamic range.

I think I'm gonna need at least tens of thousands more hours in the field with this rig to get to that level:tinysmile_shy_t:... In the mean time, glad to have the professor...:cheers:

[Steve Kaluski]

David, just practice at home in the back yard with static subjects, the more you put in, the quicker you will become, but remember, there might be the odd occasion where you will see blinkies, and those might be impossible to address so let them go, or a slight turn of the dial on the back dropping the ISO might just be the ticket!:w3

[John Mack]

Quite, a nice portrait of this limpkin. Nice detail and framing.