Disagreement

[wendell westfall]

Nikon D70s 7-200VR+2X @210 1/400 f5.6 ISO200 0 EV

Cropped 50%, Leveled, sharpened, etc.

Today, on an overcast morning, I photographed these two Snowy Egrets in what i hope was a minor disagreement. After two or three passes at each other they went about their business of searching for food in the mudflats below. I had seen this kind of activity before, but had never got a picture of it. I was very pleased to have captured it.
Criticism, please . . .

Wendell

[Gus Cobos]

Wendell,
A very fine capture indeed. I like the action. The only thing that distracts from your image is the noise in the background; just run some noise reduction and it should be fine...congrats...:cool:

[wendell westfall]

Gus, I've never run noise reduction on an image. I've seen it mentioned in critiques, but I confess that I seldom recognize it. Is it the "grainy background" in this image? You see, you are dealing with a relative novice here.

[Katie Rupp]

Wonderful action and good exposure, Wendell; I love it! You might want to clone out what looks like some dust spots on/from your sensor and I'm wondering whether there is a slight blue cast? I'd be so happy if this were mine.

[Julie Kenward]

Yes, Wendell, noise is the grainy particles that show up on an image - usually when the image is dark, you use a high ISO or you do a large crop.

I've run noise reduction on your image, cloned out the specks that are from either a dirty lens or a dirty sensor, and recropped using a vertical composition. These are only suggestions but I think they help clean and strengthen the image a bit.

Cool bit of action you caught there! :D

[Desmond Chan]

I think you have captured a very good action moment! The birds don't look sharp on my monitor somehow. It looks like there's a dark fringe around the egrets. The fringe shows up more noticeably on Julie's repost somehow.

[wendell westfall]

Katie and Jules ---- "slight blue cast", "dust spots", a re-crop, and an improved repost; I've learned a lot on this image. I think you are right on every count. Much appreciated. Thanks! This kind of criticism is very helpful for me.

And Desmond, the "fringe" is probably a result of my perhaps overly aggressive sharpening, which I thought necessary. I'll take another look.

[Lance Peters]

Nice action Wendall - everything else cvered above.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Wendell

The noise is due to underexposure !!!! That camera being used at 200 ISO will produce little noise ..... if properly exposed !!! Guessing that with overcast conditions you should have been at close to one over !!! Mete4 is trying to make those whites gray and those whites did make up a significant part of the image.

Great action/interaction Great reaction on your part !!!!

[Harold Davis]

cool capture wendell!! hope you get another shot at them!!

[wendell westfall]

I went back this morning, Harold, -- with my new-found skills -- but they were not there. However, you can bet I'll keep after them . . .