Osprey with fish

[Kristofer Rowe]

Hello everyone. I'm really looking for knowledge in post processing. I have been getting some shots lately that I am really happy with, however when I try to process them, my results turn out worse than my beginnings. I love this shot of the Osprey, but it seems to lack the punch I so often see with other shots. I've been trying to figure it out for 2 months now and it is quite frustrating.

Nikon D300, Tamron 200-500 at 320, f10, 1/800th 560 iso, +.66EV
I've only had the D300 for a few weeks and boosted the EV to expose the underside.

I shot in raw. I used view NX2 to adjust white balance and recover some highlights. I converted to tif and used photoscape to sharpen, NR and to resize. I have PSP x4 but I find my images look horrible. I also have a trial version of LR4.

If anyone would like, I have the raw file on a cloud server and I will gladly post the link if that is allowed here. Thanks in advance

[dankearl]

Kris, it looks like harsh midday light to me.
The PP is probably fine, the slow SS is the problem.
You don't need f10 at all. Most BIF images are shot wide open or one stop down.
Shoot larger apertures (I don't know what this lens is, but probably 5.6.
You could have been at ss1600, and had much better results.
The ISO would be lower also, giving you a better image.
Hope this helps.

[Kerry Perkins]

Kristofer, your problem is not in post-processing, it is in the original capture. Please tell us about the size of the image and crop, as you have posted a very tiny image by BPN standards. You may post images up to 1024x800, not to exceed either dimension. What are you happy about with this image? It appears that the sun was directly overhead, probably the worst possible shooting conditions unless you can capture the complete underside of the bird. All the "punch" is gone because you have used all the dynamic range of the camera in trying not to overexpose the far wing, which is lit by the full sun. The underwing area has no light and has gone green on you because you can't balance color for light and shade equally. Dan is right about your settings, much better to favor shutter speed over f-stop for BIF captures.

[Kristofer Rowe]

Thanks Dan, The Tamron 200-500 is a F6.3 @500, The osprey had just flown directly overhead so I dropped down to 320mm. I generally shoot at f8 or F9 for optimal sharpness, I had just dropped it down to F10 to compare sharpness with the pass the bird made right before. It was certainly very harsh light. I've shot it wide open before but it was always seemed a little too soft for my taste with my old camera. I will try it again wide open since I just got the D300 and the AF fine tune and AF system is so much better than the D90 I had before.

[Kristofer Rowe]

I thought I had resized it correctly, sorry still kind of new here. The full image is 4288x2848. I think I cropped it to 2800x2100 (roughly). But i thought it had to be maximum 1024 x something so I re sized it to that. What I like about it is the pose of the bird and the dead pan look she was giving me. Maybe I picked a bad one to display here but I'm not allowed to show another I guess.. I guess you explained the technical side of why I can't get the belly to be white. Thanks

[Bob Miller]

Hi Kris....i shoot BIf alot with the D-300 and almost always shoot at f5.6 and a shutter speed of 1250-1600. I usually shoot with the Nikon 200-400 mm. I have used the Tamron 200-500 and found it to be a good lense as long as there was plenty of light...it also is a bit slow to focus. The D-300 handles noise will at ISO 800-1000. In processing be careful of cropping over 30% as image quality does suffer. You might consider using a better beamer flash to light up the underside of the wings. AS is your image is not bad at all...hang in there...BIF are not easy...expect lots of deletes!

[Kristofer Rowe]

Hi Bob, thanks for taking the time to reply! I've posted another one that I shot yesterday. I think as simple as it sounds your 30% rule kind of set off a light in my head. I think I've been expecting too much, cropping too small than trying to figure out how to make it look better. I like the Tamron and it does really well in good light for a slow consumer lens. I've thought about the better beamer and borrowed a friends, but haven't had time to really play with it yet.