New Camera

[jack williamson]

I have been struggling to figure this new camera out for a couple of weeks now, there is quite a learning curve especially with exposure and sharpening. D800, 300 f2.8, sb900 flash, tripod. 1/400, f7.1, iso640. Flash set manually to 1/16 power. Small wb and exposure adjustment in acr. Cropped and usm in cs6. The crop tool in cs6 is spectacular. This is a setup in my yard.

[MohsenVahedipour]

Very nice set-up & shooting angle. Lovely BG & pose. TFS

[Richard Unsworth]

Totally brilliant, like everything, awesome flash work

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jack. I like the alert pose and the head angle. Nice use of the flash plus good sharpness, comp, and background. Very well done!

[Dan Brown]

Nice flash work, Jack! What have you settled on for workflow with the D800?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Well done here! Nice look-back pose, great perch, awesome BG. There is a tiny bit sticking up from the perch that could go (next to the far foot). Looks like you've figures out the workflow just fine...

[PhilCook]

Great use of flash as it looks natural, fine detail is very nice as is the birds stance, background is very nice too, but something that contrasts more with the subject would be a slight improvement I feel....new camera seems to work a treat !

[jack williamson]

Thanks folks. Dan Brown, I am really still getting into a groove with this new camera and cs6. With my D700 I would always set the radius slider to .5 and leave the amount and detail at the default in the detail box in cs3 (for capture sharpening). For this image I set the radius at .7, amount to 50, detail at default. USM in photoshop was 3 for radius, 135 for amount. I will do all cropping in photoshop now. The sliders in acr seem to be much more precise now and I try to use the highlights, shadows, whites and blacks before I use the exposure slider. I am still learning and appreciate any advice from you good folks.

[dankearl]

Without even reading your post I could tell you had the D800.
Very sharp and 3d looking.
I also could not tell until I read it, that you used flash.
Very nice work.

[Mike Tracy]

Nice alert pose, background colors and perch are very pleasing. Maybe a little more room behind the tail for me.

[Diane Miller]

This image looks very nice to me.

Just balance all those sliders in ACR -- the order isn't critical. Fix the worst issues first. Then go back and tweak previously moved sliders. It's a balance but you can't do them all at once so it's just a back-and-forth to find the sweet spot. Each one will affect the others, to varying degrees.

I prefer to do minimal sharpening in ACR and not sharpen again in PS until an image copy is resized for output. When I do sharpen in PS I like the new Smart Sharpen set to Lens Blur. It seems to do a better job on fine details. Nik's Sharpener Pro is also very nice.

With the wonderful sensor on your new camera, you may need more subtle adjustments.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice shot and congrats for the new camera!

[jack williamson]

Thanks for the comments everyone, thank you Diane for the photoshop advice.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Jack, congrats on your new toy, and this result has really turned out very well. Great IQ, love the colours, and you pretty much sorted the sharpening just fine. The colours in the BG complement the bird so well.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice perch, pose and background and striking details, Jack.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image.
Love the pose,colors,details and beautiful composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful and colorful image.

[vishaljadhav]

The bird i love
The pose is fantastic, the bird even turned to you, classical perch and a super bg
love it