Too Big, Too Noisy...

[Arthur Morris]

This Plain Chachalaca was photographed at the Ramirez Ranch in Roma, TX with the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens handheld with the EOS-50D. ISO 800. Manual metering +2 1/3 stops off the sky: 1/640 sec. at f/4. When the come onto the set the scream and yell and scare the rest of the birds away. I saw this bird at the top of a bush and made this image just before he landed on top of our woodpecker perch.

This is a pano crop with the original width.

Don't be shy. All comments welcome. I am here to learn too.

[Ramon M. Casares]

It looks like it was a cloudy day, if so, I think the light is very nice and soft, the pose is very funny and the detail and BG look good, too bad the shutter speed didn't allow you to freeze the motion blur on the perch a bit more personally if I had had the time to do so I would've gone with only +1 or even a little less compensation to gain a bit more shutter speed, still, it looks great and given the info you've shared I guess it was not a perfect day to work on flying birds but it still looks great IMO! Congratulations, nice comp, colors, and the crop works great to me!

[Harold Davis]

=I would've gone with only +1 or even a little less compensation to gain a bit more shutter speed

ramon, wouldnt it havent been terribly underexposed if you had done that?

and artie, what would the exposure have been if you had metered off the green trees? or how did you determine +2.3 off the sky? thanks!

love the capture. you got the great wing position and head angle too. sorry i cant be much more technical than that.

[Ramon M. Casares]

[quote=harold davis;251939]ramon, wouldnt it havent been terribly underexposed if you had done that?
quote]

Of course the result would've been a bit darker image, but I was thinking about the motion in the perch, noise is preety easy to remove so sometimes I take the risk of getting a little underexposed image to lighten it later, that way I gain shutter speed, not sure if it is the best call, but it has worked for me from time to time...

[Desmond Chan]

If this were mine, I would keep it :)

Composition-wise, I would crop a bit of the right. I may tone down the sky in the background a bit to see if it would improve. I like the wing blur. It delivers the sense of motion better than a entirely frozen wing can. I guess it also depends on what you want to show in the final image.

[Gary Dumer]

It looks like it was a cloudy day, if so, I think the light is very nice and soft, the pose is very funny and the detail and BG look good, too bad the shutter speed didn't allow you to freeze the motion blur on the perch a bit more personally if I had had the time to do so I would've gone with only +1 or even a little less compensation to gain a bit more shutter speed, still, it looks great and given the info you've shared I guess it was not a perfect day to work on flying birds but it still looks great IMO! Congratulations, nice comp, colors, and the crop works great to me!


I think It would have Been Better to Go to a Higher ISO say 1250 or even 1600 to get SS. That 50D can Handle higher ISO than 800 with very little Additional Noise!! JMO

[Arthur Morris]

Harold, +2 1/3 off the sky equaled the meter reading off the trees.... More than one way to skin a cat.

[David Thomasson]

Very nice, Artie! I like Desmond's idea of toning down the background a bit. I also toned up the bird and perch a little.

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1214/loud.jpg

[Roger Williams]

I prefer David's repost. Better light on the bird and perch improves the detail and pops them off the toned-down background.

[Stu Bowie]

Excellent timing for the landing Artie, showing the outspread wings, and extended legs. The comp works well as is. I would maybe darken the BG just a tad.

[Art Kornienko]

The action is nice, find the bg a bit busy especially with the sky peeking through.

[Arthur Morris]

Nice job on the repost David. Thank you sir. And thanks all for commenting.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice landing pose Artie. I shoot with 50D and am afraid to go above ISO 320 because of the noise.
Your shot looks perfect at 800.

[Richard Lovison]

Nice capture Artie.

I liked what David did around the head of the bird though I thought the shadows needed to be brought up a bit and I offered an alternative crop to consider along with some cloning in the background.

http://richardlovison.com/photos/repostA.jpg