tundra swan flock in flight

[Joel Arrington]

Canon 20D, 1/1000 @ f/11. ISO 200, focal length 360 mm, Pattern metering mode

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Joel, I moved this to ETL as there are many important lessons to be learned:

1: Avoid merges.

2: Try to make the image when the flock is flying towards you.

3: The whites of the upperwings are over-exposed.

4: Check carefully for dust spots. There is at least one big one well in front of and below the last bird.

5: Strive to push the button when the birds fill the frame in a pleasing, balanced manner.

6: Learn to properly prepare and sharpen the presentation jpegs. Though I rarely see the alleged halos they are clearly present here along with lots of artifacting.

later and love, artie

[Joel Arrington]

I know what a halo is, but I have yet to see one, nor do I know what causes them. Define artifact, please.

[Arthur Morris]

I will leave the sharpening halo education to Axel. (Perhaps he might not agree with me here, or perhaps he might see my artifacts as halos or vice versa.

IAC, if you look at the sky areas surrrounding the white far upperwings, most especially of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and last birds, you will see small funky, whitish thingies, aka, artifacts. They should not be there are are almost surely caused by either huge crops, poor image quality, poor image processing, or a combination the above. Not sure how exactly to define an artifact other than by saying that it is something funky or irregular that appears in what should be an rea uniform color, tone, or pattern.

later and love, artie

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the composition but wish the birds were facing you. I agree with Artie regarding the sharpening halos. You can easily avoid them following the tutorial Fabs wrote in the education resources forum. There is also a bit noise left around the birds and some jpg artifacts in the BG. The artifacts often occur after opening and reprocessing the jpg file.

Here is the link to the tutorial: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6040

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for your help Axel. And later and love, artie