This juvenile Red Shoulder Hawk likes to pose on my muscadine arbor and I've enjoyed his/her visits from my blind.
There is much to critique about this photo and I want to hear all everyone has to say. My biggest frustration is attaining the razor sharp images that you folks post. No matter what I do, my photos just aren't really, really sharp. My equipment is a D200, 70-300 VR lens, on a tripod shooting in RAW. This shot was about 12 feet from the subject, so length isn't an issue (is it?). What about the lense, is it just not capable of capturing any sharper images than this?
I wonder if I'm missing something in post processing. I use PSE 6 to sharpen (USM), adjust saturation, lighting, noise reduction, exposure, etc. Still I call myself the poster boy for the "Photoshop Challenged". I'd be very interested in techniques that might improve sharpness and detail.
f 5.6
1/200 sec
ISO 320
180 mm
Thanks for looking, your comments will be greatly appreciated.
Kim has done a nice job of showing how the post processing makes a huge difference in the perception of an image. All digital images are soft to a certain degree out of the camera, depending on the anti aliasing filter, camera sharpening settings etc. So, you have to figure on sharpening them all. Our perception of sharpness is closely tied to local contrast, which Kim has helped a lot in your image.
The 70-300 lens is capable of very good results, esp. in the 70-200mm range. It does get a little softer at the extreme zoom, as do most zooms. Most folks would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the 70-200 2.8 and 70-300 VR at moderate apertures, in the zoom range shared by both.
I do find the background in the upper left too bright and distracting, but that can be toned down easily in post.
Keep them coming!
Randy
04-16-2009, 02:22 PM
Tony Whitehead
1 Attachment(s)
Welcome, Lowell. Very nice first post. I agree with Randy's comments on lenses and the need for postprocessing to optimise an image for web display. There are some good sharpening threads in the Educational resources forum. Your image looks sharp with good eye contact and feather detail. The pose is nice but the perch and lack of room for the "virtual tail" is a slight drawback. I see a greenish colour cast and some BG noise has been accentuated in Kim's repost which is a good step in the right direction. A combination of selective sharpening and noise reduction on separate layers is often the best approach in optimising an image for output. Selecting the BG and blurring and burning is also an option. Looking forward to more of your images.
04-16-2009, 02:25 PM
arash_hazeghi
Nice shot and eye contact, it's a shame the tail is blocked. Regarding sharpness it is not possible to tell what is potentially wrong when we are looking at a down-sampled image, Can you post a 100% crop of the shot above (from where the focus point is)? It might be that you AF is slightly off or you are not applying adequate sharpening to the RAW files.
04-16-2009, 02:39 PM
Ed Grella
Lowell,
Your lens and D200 are very capable of crisp shots. My 70-300VR lens is sharpest at f8. I would use a fill flash at a low power setting to give you better feather detail.
Ed
04-16-2009, 02:45 PM
Lowell Sims
RSH Original
Here is the photo as shot, just downsized and converted to jpeg.
A nice shot -- but as you say, a little tricky to work with. When you have the subject in shade and a bright background,
I think the best approach is to mask out the subject first. Then you can work with background and subject
separately. I used a curves adjustment layer to tone down the background (just how far to go with this is a
matter of personal taste). I also cloned a little to darken the brightest areas in the background.
Working with the subject on a mask, I made a levels adjustment layer, then S/H filter, then another levels layer.
For sharpening, I generally use an edge mask. I assume there are tutorials somewhere on this site for how to
make them. Basically, you want white line along all the edges to be sharpened, and black everywhere else to
prevent sharpening. That allows you to be pretty aggressive with unsharp mask and a small radius (used a 0.2 px
radius and 500 for the amount, threshold 2).
Excellent reposts, David's being my favorite. The angle is steep, something not too desirable and your lens is not long enough to flatten the perspective aas a 600mm would help. You are also working in the shade, with a sunlit background, another ingredient for trouble.
All in all, you managed to do pretty good. The 300/4 may yield sharper results.
Big welcome to BPN!
04-17-2009, 06:16 AM
Juan Aragonés
Hi Lowell and wellcome on board. I usually shoot with a 300 2,8 VR lens and this is one of the sharpest lens that you can imagine. Recently I adquired a 70-300VR family photography and my results with that lens are, in terms of sharpness, far from the one that I got with the prime lens. Of course you can expect that but I am quite happy with the performance of the 70-300 (instead of the fact that I am used to more sharpness). Considering the prices, weight, size and flexibility this is a fantastic lens that can produce razor sharp results (mainly on the 70-200 mm range). I decided to keep the lens I am enjoying it a lot (and yours look sharp)
Your original post doesn´t look bad in terms of sharpness but if yo compare that image with others that are posted here you will find that it looks soft. Why? It is easy to explain, sharpness is related with image size. If you want to post an image in the web you have to sharpen it considering the final size that you are going to post. Sometimes an image that is tack sharp at 100% is posted here and it looks badly soft beacuse the photographer didn´t take care enought to process the image for our web size. On the other hand, an image that is not very sahrp at 100% can be processed for web presentation and looks tack sharp.
We have some tutorials about sharpnening in BPN that may help you a lot.
Keep them coming
04-17-2009, 09:09 AM
Lowell Sims
Thanks for your comments. Looks like I have a bit of homework to do re: post processing. Thanks again. I really enjoy looking at the photos on this website. I shall return.
