Deep Shadows

Greetings. With the buzz around the new cameras with very high ISO settings, I went searching for detail in those deep shadows with a shot of a reddish I got on Christmas last year at Bolsa Chica with the once high ISO king the Nikon D3...

Attachment 110018

The original shot was taken at ISO 800 but at 1/2000 f/6.3 in dim morning light, the back lit subject is underexposed significantly (the subject was on the move & correct exposure wouldn't have frozen the motion & this was hand held at 600mm). To bring out the deep shadows I used a custom picture control (curve for raw conversion) which clips everything over 52 in the histogram to white (that's partially into the left most quadrant of the histogram, about a 6-7 stop boost). NR, Topaz Detail, InFocus, and Lab curves, sharpening were used to pull out as much detail balanced against noise as I could. Some original color from the a separate unboosted color conversion was selectively reintroduced & saturation boosted with Topaz Simplify, and multiply blending.

Thanks for looking...

Cheers,

-Michael-

I like the base image, the effects and colors. Only nit is I'd like to see the bird just a bit bigger...but your image, your vision....well done

Beautiful composition, Michael. Very nice base image and I like the hk bg. I do agree the bird could be slightly bigger but wonderful creative composition even otherwise. TFS.

Love the combination of detail and isolation, Michael. Amazing brew of processing! TFS! Wish I understood half of it... your description gives me something to shoot for. :S3: The reflection is complementing/balancing the comp very nicely.

Michael, You did a great job with this one. I might take a slice off the rear if it were mine. I like the way the white background makes the bird and reflection pop. Nicely done.

Love the intense pose, white BG, and reflection. Nicely processed and composed, just wish for it to be a little larger.

Paul, Indranil, Steve, Denise, Brendan,

Thanks much for commenting. Thought you might be interested to see what a the straight image (what would be sooc) looks like:

Attachment 110096

The lift was actually closer to 4 stops. The original histogram is shown (from curves) and what an equivalent curves to clip the bg to white (move right curves slider to blue mark). The left most bump in the histogram would be the subject all in the deep shadows. I've played around with the deep shadows before but not on birds. When the new camera arrives I might see what happens in those deep shadows for bif at base iso in low light (getting high ss) :bg3: ...

Cheers,

-Michael-

Fascinating to see the two images and what can be done with something. I really, really love the final outcome … well done.