Not a Male Painted Bunting

[Arthur Morris]

I traveled to Little St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia in hopes of getting some killer stuff on Painted Bunting. Got a few but the trip was not as good as I had hoped. This Carolina Chickadee was photographed at a feeder set-up with the Canon 500mm f/4L IS lens, the 1.4X II TC, and the EOS-40D. ISO 1000. Evaluative metering at zero: 1/250 sec. at f/8.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Michael Menefee]

Wow, this is looking terrific for ISO 1000 and goes to show how accurate high-iso exposures can produce quite usable results on modern DSLRs. I especially like the interesting eye catchlights in this one, I would have guessed you had used flash. Great capture and sorry about the bummer on no bunting capture joy.

[Gary Dumer]

I like the angle, Crisp Detail and BG. I'm just wondering if you have a extra Zero in ISO.

[Arthur Morris]

Yes, fill flash at -2 stops (no Better Beamer). And no typo on the ISO. I may have used Axel's Photoshop NR tips on the Quick Masked BKGR...

[Paul Pagano]

This is why Arthur Morris is the king! Incredible for ISO 1000-I've not seen any NR technique that keeps the subject this sharp. I need to go find Axel's tip.

[Philippe Collard]

Hello Artie,

This is an instant classic! It's all perfect of course. I love the pose, details, exposure, background, that perch looks very nice too. I have a question though - see I am trying to overcome my shyness and my total admiration for your work - the whites look a little bit blue don't they? I am guessing the bird was in the shade and you wanted to capture it as seen?

Cheers,

Philippe.

[Arthur Morris]

This is why Arthur Morris is the king! Incredible for ISO 1000-I've not seen any NR technique that keeps the subject this sharp. I need to go find Axel's tip.

:) and thanks for your kind words. First I make a Quick Mask of the BKGr staying well away from the bird. Then it is Filter/Noise/Noise Reduction and then Axel's settings:

Strength: 5-10 depending on the amount of noise
Preserve Details: 45%
Reduce Color Noise: 45%
Sharpen Details: 0%
and Remove JPEG Artifact is checked

I may tweak them a bit and usally finish up with a 2-4 pixels Gaussian blur... Thanks to the Ax-man.

[Arthur Morris]

Hello Artie, This is an instant classic! It's all perfect of course. I love the pose, details, exposure, background, that perch looks very nice too. I have a question though - see I am trying to overcome my shyness and my total admiration for your work - the whites look a little bit blue don't they? I am guessing the bird was in the shade and you wanted to capture it as seen? Cheers, Philippe.

Good eye, Philippe. I missed the blue cast. Went back to the optimized TIFF, reduced the blue SAT 20 points for the image, and then 70 points on the whitish fave patch. Thanks! Folks need to remember that I am here to learn too!

[Kenn Christensen]

sheese.. this is the sense I get constantly from you.... you school me on anything and everything.. I have chicadees much like this around here.. they are so tame Ive had them land on my head and shoulders when Im out feeding them... so you would THINK I have at least ONE nice shot of them... but NOOOOOOOO....... man... I bow to your genius..... Ive taken literally thousands of shots of these guys.. you would think ONE might equal this.... lol.. oh well.... maybe after a few thousand more.. who knows?
obviously.... great work.....

[Raymond Barlow]

very nice image Artie, the detail is wonderful for iso 1000., no nits here, the composition, background colours all look excellent., and a great pose., and the reflections in the eye create some interest.

[Steve Maxson]

I'm amazed at the image quality at ISO 1000 - I need to be more adventuresome with my 40D. A very cool image considering that chickadees never seem to sit still. Good pose, sharpness and background. The mouth slightly open is a plus. Interesting blue color on the legs and feet. My only comment was going to be about the overall cool color tones, but Philippe has already noted that. The repost is an improvement though it is still on the cool side to my eye. If it was mine, I'd probably try to warm it up some more.

[Phil Seu]

amazing image. inspirational

phil seu

[Michel Pilon]

Hello Arthur,

I really like those shots where we can easily see the depth of field like here!!!

The bg has lovely pastel-like colours and brings less monotony than a "one-color blurred bg" without keeping our eyes out of the bird... Excellent exposition and I'm happy to know that ISO1000 works so welll with the 40D (that I just bought recently)... Excellent POV (Point of view) and I like the beak opened just a bit...

Thanks for sharing!

Michel

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Peter. I do not notice much difference; I think that you meant .5 degrees. 5 whole degrees would have been a huge registration.

[Brian Wong]

Hi Artie!

I love the beautiful background ... the shapes, direction, and colors really set off the bird nicely. I hope you do not mind my repost:confused:, but I wanted to see if any more noise could be removed from your lovely background. (I reposted the original and after comparison because of the JPEG artifacts in duplication). Just as you described, I applied the extra effect to just the background only.

In downloading your image, it was a great learning experience to closely study your work. I think the bird is perfect!

[Simon Bennett]

Artie

Like Brian I reckon there was a bit of noise still showing around the bird, especially in front of the beak and throat. So I passed the jpg through Neat Image noise reduction with no masking. I use Neat Image quite often with my 40D images.

[Arthur Morris]

Both guys did a great job of getting rid of the noise that I left in front of the bird. Simon, can you tell us a bit more about Neat Image?

[Freddy Franzella]

Great detail on the bird! I myself have neat image but in my opinion I prefer a program called Dfine 2 what is so great about it -it will only target the background! you can do it over and over and over and you still maintain detail in your subject.

[Simon Bennett]

Neat Image is a specialized noise reduction application that works stand-alone or as a photoshop plug-in, see http://www.neatimage.com/. To use it I load the image into ps, duplicate the layer, then invoke the Neat Image add-on, typically without masking, on the duplicated layer.

I use the Neat Image defaults which involves the add-on compiling a noise profile for the image, then giving the option to preview its suggested noise reduction. I typically zoom in the head / background interface to see if it is reducing detail in the subject. If the subject is well exposed with lots of detail, like the chickadee, there is generally little or no detail lost, while the background goes creamy smooth. With some reddy brown uniform subjects I have noticed loss of detail, so sometimes you might need to mask the subject, but generally I find there is no need.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Simon. Freddie, can you tell us more about how you use Dfine 2?