South Polar Skua

Of the many birding hats I wear, leading offshore/pelagic trips from Monterey and Half Moon Bay here in California is one. The South Polar Skua is one
species we encounter with some regularity but they're always flying directly away from the boat at high speed. I've now done 50+ trips over the past five
years, and this was the first time an example presented at both eye level and close range. So stoked to get the dangling feet as that's something we don't
see once they've lifted off!

Closely related to gulls, this barrel-chested bully is a kleptoparasite; it robs other species of prey when it doesn't feel like doing its own fishing or scavenging.

Lighting is always an issue since it take 3-4 hours to reach to deep water these guys prefer. If the sun isn't directly overhead by that point, then we're working
with high overhead cloud as was the case here. So, you don't really get a choice of what lighting to use as you on land.

This was literally the first target on which I trained my just-purchased R5. Given zero practice, I'm happy with the result.

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS R5
1/4000 at f/5.6, ISO 800
Processed in LR CC with Topaz NR

Attachment 192085

sweet frame Dorian, made the best out of the condition. Congrats on the new camera, I am sure it's miles better than the Canon DSLR's you were using before, smart move on getting rid of those while they were still worth something....

I like the wing position, good exposure., I think processing has some room for improvement, the NR looks a bit strong from here but you will nail it down soon

cheers

Hi Dorian, at ISO 800 why are you using NR, it's just killed the detail, just way too strong and not required, just leave NR out below say 1600. As presented the image is just soft with the application added.

TFS
Steve

Dorian, first off congrats on getting this one. Sounds like a subject that doesn't give many opps.

Additionally, congrats on the R5. It was a very steep learning curve for me but with your skill (and quite a lot of resources out now in terms of best practices), you will do well.

The wing position and eye level view are nice. Like that the take off gear is still down and the water drops are a nice touch.

The image does have a slight bit much on the smoothness front and a bit of sharpening halo on the left leading edges but those adjustments will come with time.

Look forward to more!

Congratulations on getting a clear shot of this species, with great flight angle, wings-up pose with dangling feet, and good exposure. I agree with the above comments about loss of some detail. I have generally had good luck with Topaz NR but find it needs some tweaking, as I'm sure you know. I wonder if the fact that the bird has just taken off from the water might cause some loss of detail in the body?

DATPCA. Topaz DeNoise on Low Light will not smooth out the details as seen above.

with love, artie

Quote:

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Topaz DeNoise on Low Light will not smooth out the details as seen above.

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Only if any sharpening within the application wasn't zeroed at the time of application I assume Artie? If Dorian applied Topaz NR in whatever mode, but zeroed the sharpening would that not just 'smooth-out' the whole image?

I guess Dorian will let us know, but I doubt he used NR on the bird...I never use NR on the subject, just the BG.
Bird may look at bit soft because he shot from a boat and sometimes no matter the SS, you get motion.

1) This file wasn't perfectly sharp to start with. Had it not been such a difficult species to photograph I probably would have let the frame go.

2) Steve, I use NR at ISO 800 and above because LRs RAW converter sucks. Arash has shown how much noise it introduces versus other methods (methods I do not know how to use).

3) Dan, I applied NR across the entire frame here. This frame wasn't worth doing it selectively. Also, doing it selectively in LR is a royal pain in the *** without a magic wand type tool.

Nice work, Dorian. Every year a pelagic trip is offered for birders and photographers off the east coast of Florida. You might try Lightroom deconvolution sharpening to recover detail on the bird. Good capture of a uncommon bird. Thank you for sharing.

Dorian, buy Affinity photo, $24, it has NR to match Topaz and a wand selection tool that works well.
As easy to use as Lightroom, in fact, once you get it, you wont need Lightroom or Topaz.
A real Bargain.

Dorian, at ISO800 providing the file is exposed perfectly you really do not require many NR, what is the advantage in doing so? I would export a file to print and that will tell you exactly how the image looks and if it needs NR, just for future reference. In addition, NR should always be applied to the raw before exporting to PS as a baked tiff, why do you think it’s built into Raw converters architecture at that stage.

Hey Dorian, congrats on your choice of the R5. FWIW I really struggled with mine because I was using it in the way of my 1DXIII and ended up with huge noise issues.
To the point where I thought the body was a dud and needed replacing. Long and short of it all is to expose further to the right than you might have with the 1DX.
Get the exposure in the sweet spot and there will be little noise even up to iso 3200.

Neat looking bird. Yes, the dangling feet are nice. Get out that and haver some fun with that new Body.

Hi Dorian ... congrats to your latest equipment , hope you will be happy with it .
Might take a bit to get it working properly with your way of photography and great to see that you have taken this rare species .

Technical shortcomings already covered ... in which I do agree .
Surprised to see that you are trying to post an image that was not sharp captured , unusual for you .

I think you can easily get away with LR and create great output files ( as shown by other members ) and do not need to blame the software for the output , I think it is mainly operator error .... rather than software issue .

TFS Andreas