Can anyone save this?

[Rosl Roessner]

Oh, I saw a fantanstic bird, the black woodpecker.
But it was to bad to get a good exposure in the just 2 seconds, he was there.... :(

The image is made with 1/320 sec / f 5.6 and ISO 3200....

I ran a Noise reduction programm and lost a lot of details (the Original is quite sharp, but very noisy)
I think, even if the exposure looks bad, it is not too wrong, because there are lots of dark areas, but also the white parts of the tree.

Because I would really love to have a picture of the black woodpecker, I would be really glad, if one of you could give it a try with my original RAW file, that I would love to send you by mail. :)

Thanks a lot, Rose

[Harold Davis]

redfish71@bellsouth.net i'm up for the challenge!! send it to me.

[Alfred Forns]

Would love to give a try !!! Fabs and I will give it a try !! Might want to send via Megauploads.com

btw we have used ISO 6400 with the D3 and gotten excellent results noise wise !!!!

[Rosl Roessner]

Hi Harold,
Thank you for working with the image! I just sent you a mail, i hope, you can open the file....

@ Alfred:
Thanks to you too! What is Megauploads.com? Don't know that....

[Harold Davis]

rosl, did you get my email?

[Robert Smith]

Can't wait to see what this crew did with the original. What a treat to photograph this bird! Hopefully you will find a more cooperative one at some point as well...

[Nonda Surratt]

What a VERY cool bird! I also can't wait to see what is done wit the image.

[Alfred Forns]

Rosl It is a service for emailing large files It is free and easy to use !!! Will post link below You will be able to send the raw image !!!

http://www.megaupload.com/

[Brian Wong]

Hi Rosl!

I also would like to give it a try! I just sent you a private message, or I can see if you can use Alfred's method to upload your RAW file.

[Rosl Roessner]

Hi Harold,

sorry, I did not get your email yesterday.
I converted the image to JPEG an sent it to you now again.

To all of you: I can't wait to see the results!
Thanx a lot!!!!

Brian: I did not get a PN from you.
Could you send me your email adress? Please send it to: rosl@birdpictures.de

Love, Rosl

[Bruce Gove]

Man, I'm dying to see these reposts!!!

Bruce

[Harold Davis]

hi rosl, you have email!! alfred.....we are gonna need your help here!!:(

[Brian Wong]

Hi Rosl!

Wow ol Wow ... this was a really difficult challenge, and requires much, much more than my skills. I worked as much as I dared on the noise, & tried all the tricks that I could think of ... but I just couldn't pull out much detail from the Black Woodpecker. Sorry about that!!

This is what I came up with. I decided to try a small crop from the right, to see if I could make him bigger in the frame. But any cropping made it start to fall apart on me.

You did very well, and the Woodpecker is sharp. I think the really white bark on the tree confused the metering for the black Woodpecker. Plus the dark background really made things difficult for the Woodpecker to stand out.

Hopefully Alfred, Fabs, Harold & others will come up with something better for you!

[Rosl Roessner]

Hi Brian,

yeah I knew that this is a challenge....

I like your repost a lot. Thank you for working with it!
I think the main problem is the noise and the dark background behind the black bird. Plus the white bark...
A lot of problems here.

But I am looking for that bird for more than a year now. You can hear it in the woods here, but because it is so dark and living mostly up in the trees it is really difficult to find. I try to find a tree where they feed or breed but had no luck by now.
Last weekend I visited my brother and in the woods there I found this beautiful bird. It gave me two seconds and then flew away again.....
So I will be in love with your reposts....

To Fabs& AL:
I just received your image! Great job! I like it; still it is a black bird in front of a dark BG ;-))
Don't you want to show it here, for all the interested guys? Thank you for doing the work with my beloved bird....

Glad to be here in the forum,
Rosl

[Brian Wong]

Hi Rosl!

I am looking forward to seeing your special bird. Have you considered taking along a flash plus an extender during your hikes in the woods? I know you will eventually get him/her!

For those interested, this repost is what I saw when I initially opened your original RAW file after downloading:( (WOW ... looking at trying to separate shades of black down there!!!!!!:cool:). It was fun to try anyway, thank you.

I too would also like to see how Fabs and Al were able to fare with it, and also hope to pick up ideas on how they effectively handled it.

[Rosl Roessner]

Hi Brian,
could you write down, what you did with the image? It looks much brighter and vibrant than the Original!
It would be quite interesting to know your way to make the image that much better!

I often take the flash with me, but I am not sure, if I would have used it as I did not want to scare the shy bird.

[Sid Overbey]

Rosl, here is my attempt. It is very hard to get past the noise from ISO 3200 and the dark background. Still, it is a very interesting bird.

Sid

[Brian Wong]

Hi Brian,
could you write down, what you did with the image? It looks much brighter and vibrant than the Original!
It would be quite interesting to know your way to make the image that much better!

I often take the flash with me, but I am not sure, if I would have used it as I did not want to scare the shy bird.

Hi Rosl!

Thanks but actually, I really don't think I improved it any compared with your version. I tried lots of different combinations, but I am not too happy:( with it. I am still thinking about it, and actually am still playing around with some ideas. I will PM you.