High ISO exercise

[Sidharth Kodikal]

I spent some time processing high ISO images from my backlog today.
Here's a Great Kiskadee in flight from a setup in South Texas.
Masked the BG and ran NR on it. Mild NR on the bird separately.

Canon 1D4, 500mm
1/3200, f5.6, iso 4000, manual flash
hide, tripod

All comments appreciated.
Thanks

[Jan Wegener]

superb flight shot and a good job handling the noise. I might be tempted to work on the color balance a bit. Canon likes to introduce a bit of magenta when you use high ISOs. There's not a strong cast or anything, just thought the image might even improve from a little adjustment.

[Randy Stout]

Sidharth:

Wonderful wing display, head angle. Nice job on the noise. A little surprised with flash that you had to go this high on ISO? Did you use a beamer?

I think the image could go 1/4 stop brighter based on my monitor.

Cheers

Randy

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Incredible job on the NR. Looks great. Would love to see a portion of the original to compare the before to the after.

[Marina Scarr]

Good catch by Jan on the slight magenta cast. I didn't even see it until I brought it into PS. +4 on the green scale looks just right to me.

This is an amazing flight pose and you handled the high ISO very well and really pushed the camera to work for you with impressive results.

[Michael Todd]

Awesome shot, tack sharp on the bird and a very pleasing BG. The NR worked wonderfully.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Thanks folks. Indeed, I missed the slight magenta cast. Will fix.

Randy, for this very acrobatic speedster I had to be trigger happy and didn't want to rely solely on flash. I was using it only as fill. Yes, I did use a BB.
I actually was debating whether to darken the bird a bit! It doesn't look dark on any of my monitors. But I do need to carefully calibrate my monitor ...

Miguel, here's a 100% crop from a conversion from raw to jpeg using Canon DPP without any processing in photoshop.
I processed several images at iso 4000 today and found that 1d4 files are fairly salvageable when exposed well to the right.
This is new territory for me. There are several folks here who routinely shoot at high ISOs with good outputs.

Thanks everyone, for all the comments.

[arash_hazeghi]

very cool Sidharth. I love the dynamic pose and the detail is pretty good too. love the wing spread. You did a great job with high ISO processing! DPP is really great for Canon RAWs.

[vishaljadhav]

Amazing pose and ISO classically handled, i guess you have great comments above
very nicely done Sidharth

[Nick Palmieri]

Sweet capture, nice wing position, great BG. Good discussion following. I have recently been using DPP again and very happy with its RAW processing abilities.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the wing position, fanned tail, sharpness, PP and BG. Great image Sidharth!

[Grace Scalzo]

Love the flight pose. You handled the high ISo wonderfully and ended up with a stunning result.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Sid, amazing inflight pose here, and just love the shape of the wings. The BG has turned out well too. You have processed the noise very well, so great job on the pp work.

[Loi Nguyen]

Love the dynamic pose and the color. Exposure was pot on. Amazing to see the black eye on black o well. Great job ith the flash as fill. Great to see how you processed the high ISO file. This is entire new to me and I will need to learn.

[Bill Dix]

Excellent flight pose captured, Sidharth. Great detail and wing position. Excellent PP work in processing the high ISO. Some work on the color balance will help.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Excellent pose and stunning work in post processing. Wouldn't have guessed the high iso if you hadn't told us. I'm especially impressed about the amount of detail you managed to preserve. I would second you own suggestion to slightly tone down the bird. Specifically, there seems to be a slight imbalance between the wings and body on the one hand, and the head on the other.

[Satish Ranadive]

Sidharth:
I can only say that this gorgeous image with magical colors and lovely flight pose.Love it.

Regards,
Satish.

[Kiran Poonacha]

great pose captured brother... loved the details...

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

This is fabulous Siddharth, great wing span, awesome PP work, amazing colors. well done.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Such a beautiful image I didn't notice the cast myself. The wingspread great with a nice sharp face and cute little feet too.

[dankearl]

Really nice Sidharth, I probably would not have run NR on the bird at all.
I think with proper exposure (and this is), it is not necessary.
The flight pose is perfect.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Appreciate the comments. Based on the feedback I did some color correction and levels tweaks and liked the result.
Thank you!

[Frank Schauf]

Fantastic. Wonderful pose, colors and background.

[Karl Egressy]

Fantastic shot, Sidharth. Love the wing and tail position and the fine colours and light. ISO 4000 is amazing!!!!

[David Salem]

Great job with the high ISO and even better job capturing the action. Beautiful pose and shot!