Back to Noisy Miners. These are my inclement weather birds shot from the house deck, and we have a lot of La Nina inclement weather lately.
Canon EOS R5 EF 600 f4 III 1.4x III 840mm HH
1/2500 f5.6 iso1600
ACR PS2022 Curves set to 50% gray, Crop, S&H, a bit of eye work, removed one small slightly intruding twig
10-06-2022, 01:56 AM
Steve Kaluski
Hi Colin, I quite like the comp, but the overall IQ & PP isn't there for me, you should be nailing stuff like this and I'm not sure why not????
To me the image was under exposed, expose for the subjects so with a white backdrop like this I thought you might have been at least around +1 EV if not more, but your SS will drop so you need more ISO. This also looks like a big crop and if things are not bang on, any flaws in the RAW will only be amplified. Shadow/Highlight tool hasn't done any favours, personally I hate it, as there are better options if required. It lacks sharpness, everything is soft and so you don't get the form & definition within the plumage. All of it has an almost four colour B/W, a very trendy mode in the 90's where everything was a rich B/W but key components were in colour.
It's a real shame as I like the offspring craning the heads to be feed and the open beaks illustrate this nicely.
Based on the Parrot raw, the camera is correctly set up, however HH that rig with the R5 there could be a hint of pixel blur, coupled with under exposed, a big crop and some PP issues it's tough.
TFS
Steve
10-06-2022, 04:43 AM
Colin Driscoll
Yeah you are right Steve, too big a crop. I got caught up in the lovely mood of the shot and forgave the technical failings!
10-06-2022, 05:16 AM
Andreas Liedmann
Hi Colin ... a super cool behavioral capture .
As I am looking on my old 2012 MBP I cannot be precise with my technical feedback .
As viewed it does look ok , but would trust Steve and his thoughts for the most part .
Why are you using S/H ? If it is the S/H from PS , I would say ( in general) not the best tool of all the tools in PS . The worst is , that it is destructive .
TFS Andreas
10-07-2022, 03:19 PM
Dorian Anderson
The behavior and interaction are great, but -- as Steve observes -- the IQ just isn't there, probably because of a combination of cropping and underexposure. This degradation is most visible on the two chicks; the black in the face has become almost pointillated. The adults near wing is also very smudgy. It might be worth revisiting the workflow, but it could be that you're asking too much from the original.
10-08-2022, 07:46 PM
Colin Driscoll
Thanks Dorian, my workflow was ok, just too much crop, flat light and marginally underexposed. Should have put the 2x on.