American Avocet - Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon

[gareth thomson]

Shot taken in July around sunset using rented gear:

• Canon 1D4
• 400mm f/4 + 1.4 teleconverter
• manual exposure
• f/5.6
• iso 640
• 1/1000th second


Questions: Not sure about crop, colors, sharpness, and background noise which seems far in excess of what my Pentax K-5 would have at the same iso. However it looks better in PS than after saving as jpeg. I'm using PS's bicubic smoother. Is there a better choice?

Any suggestions on how to get the bird to pop out of the bg? Again, in PS the bg looks smoother and less saturated than it does here. What's the trick to best present jpegs here?

Also does anyone have any experience w/ the Canon 400mm DO? It was used here w/ a 1.4 tc. What's the opinion of board members about this lens.? It was easy to hand hold, but how does it compare to the other long tele's in Canon's lineup?

I've learned a lot in the few weeks I've been a member of this forum, and appreciate how helpful everyone is. (gt)

[Don Nelson]

Gareth
In my opinion, the background is dark. I can tell you've made this image after the sun has gone down behind the mountains to the west -- the strong blue cast on top of the bird's back indicates that the sky was the scene's light. Use of a flash as fill would have added local contrast in the feathers -- there isn't a lot of separation between the darks feathers. I don't have Nik's Color Efex 4.0 loaded on this laptop, but use of tonal contrast may pull a little more out (so that isn't in this repost).
A little quick mask (QM tool on left side of PS CS5 or CS6) plus a little sharpening of the bird will help.
Here's a repost of what I would do if it were mine (ignore poor mask edges of bird - you'll do better starting with larger raw than this little 1000 pixel wide jpg). I haven't spent any time optimizing the background lightening, just made a quick repost to show you one potential alternate to the darker background. Also had a lot of noise removed from background.
Hope this helps.

[gareth thomson]

Thanks Don, great help. You are right about the shot - it was dark, but I did not rent a flash unit w/ the 1D4, so I hoped simply boosting iso would do the trick. Didn't even notice the color cast. I'll work on my own copy, but am at work and then have a commitment tonight, so probably won't be till tomorrow that I can get at this. BTW: I always have difficulty using the selection tools to completely separate the bird from background but will give it a go. (gt)

[David Salem]

Nice shot of one of my favorite birds. Looks a bit noisier than my 1dmk4 @ ISO640 produces also. Not sure why. The bird is sharp and the DOF looks Good also. You wanted to get the bird to pop against the BG again, Dons handy work sure did that. A little off the top would be my suggestion. Nice work.

[Don Nelson]

I look forward to your repost.
you don't say which version of PS you are using, but CS5/CS6 have a refine edge feature after( and can be used during - for multiple selected areas) that allows a lot of help for selection refinement. Also, using this to feather the edge can hide a lot of imprecise selection.
If you haven't done so already, I'd think you may want to prioritize adding a flash, flash bracket (wimberley, version depends upon your setup) and a Better Beamer. That being said, I don't use it except where needed, such as this image....
You don't have to buy the wizzy 600EX-RT since you won't be using radio remotes -- an older 580EXII should work fine (but they are now so desireable that new prices on amazon appear close to the 600. Go figure.)

Also, on the Better Beamer(tm): The vacuum formed sizes are custom fitted for the flash model. The newer 600 body is more rounded and the existing model I have for the 580EXII/580EX is a poor fit for the new 600. Anyone seen a new version for the 600? Artie's not selling it yet - I just checked.
Not on amazon either.

[Alan Murphy]

Sweet image. i like the repost, but would like some noise removed from the BG.

[Don Nelson]

Alan
Repost had backgound with one round of PS->despeckle and PS->Reduce noise. I didn't have my usual noise plugins installed in the work laptop but I agree that the OP should take it a bit further using better noise plugins

[Satish Ranadive]

Gareth:
this is wonderful shot.You have got very nice advice by BPN members.
I like the repost. Love the pose,colors,background and water ripples.I would crop both on top and bottom.

Regards,
Satish.

[Robert Holguin]

Very nice shot. Great walking pose, love the water drop at the end of the bill, and me personally I like the OP better.
I just like the colors and the mood more.
well done.

[Carl Day]

Hi Gareth,

Hope you don't mind but I've had a quick go with this. I haven't done that much to it actually. I liked the original post. Loved the colors and I can see it was shot in the evening so wanted to keep that feel. I've basically just reduced the noise in photoshop and sharpened a little, oh and cropped it a bit from the top. I'm sure you could do even more with the original file.

Hope you like it.



Cheers,

Carl.

www.carldayphotography.co.uk

[Bill Dix]

A handsome shot of this lovely bird, with great low POV. I personally like the darker OP. My only complaints were the noise in the BG, need for a little sharpening and slight crop. Carl's repost beat me to the punch, and turned the OP into a really beautiful image IMHO. Wish I had this in my files.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm liking the dark BG in the OP too, and the repost in pane number 10 does it for me. I do agree the noise in the OP is alot more than should be for this ISO with that camera body. Is it a large crop? Was the image oroginally underexposed? Both? As for the colour shift, not sure if you do already, but make sure to convert to srgb before posting for web...some browsers (including explorer) only recognize srgb.

[gareth thomson]

Thanks to everyone who posted advice and comments.

I only joined this forum a couple of weeks ago, and it's been very instructive. I've never posted images before, so it's a treat to hear what you all think.

About the noise: I too am surprised. As I said in my post - it was rental gear and my first experience w/ a camera/lens combo other than my Pentax k-5/300mm. The crop is minimal... Is it possible the 1D4 requires a different sort of processing than the files output by my Pentax?? Even looking at the raw file, it looks blotchy. Yes, the light was mostly gone, but I could have shot that scene w/ my Pentax k-5 at iso 640 w/out much noise, so I'm puzzled.

So, again - thanks everyone. Great group here on this forum, and I'm delighted to be a member. Hope to be able to contribute some meaningful C&C as I learn more. cheers (gt)

[Frank Schauf]

I like the repost, nice deep shooting position and great eye contact.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gareth, I like the overall setting in your image, both with Avocet and dripping bill, and lovely colours in the BG. I feel Carl's repost in pane # 10 has turned out the best with regards to the crop and NR.

Having recently bought a 1D Mark IV, I do not even get noise using ISO 800.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

The third repost is my fav. I do like how the bird is going forward and the tiny water drop hanging from the beak. Nice light too. :)