Juvenile Coopers hawk

[arash_hazeghi]

Here is another image of the Juvenile Cooper's hawk from SoCal earlier this month



1D X MK II 400 DO II + 2X III. ISO 4000. f/8 at 1/320sec. hand held. Processed with DPP 4.4. hope you like it

[William Dickson]

Very nice Arash. Top class processing as usual. I like how the colours on the bird blend with the BG. I also like the facial expression.

Will

[annmpacheco]

Beautiful Arash, no noise at all and the screaming pose is wonderful. I like the vertical crop and the lone talon gripping the perch, very expressive. Well done again!

[Bob Smith]

Another masterful image from your 400 DO Arash. The feather detail is crystalline in it's clarity. I'm wondering what role NR played in achieving that given the high ISO?

[arash_hazeghi]

Another masterful image from your 400 DO Arash. The feather detail is crystalline in it's clarity. I'm wondering what role NR played in achieving that given the high ISO?

Hi Bob, thanks

In order to get this kind of quality at ISO 4000 each of the following steps are equally important

1-RAW exposure: it needs to be tack sharp and exposed correctly, if it is soft or underexposed it goes to the trash can

2- RAW processing: With Canon DPP4.4 some (optimal) noise reduction is applied during RAW conversion while retaining the details in the full size TIFF file

3- I used neat image to clean up the image further in PS where I cropped and darkened a bright spot in the BG. With neat image, I got rid of the last bits of noise while keeping all the feather details intact

all of the above 3 steps are necessary to get the final image

best

[Richard Gollar]

Hello Arash,
I purchased your Post processing guide and when you did your noise reduction did you do just the back ground? Or did you do like you guide and do sample spots of the bird and do some on it also? Thanks and awesome image.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hello Arash,
I purchased your Post processing guide and when you did your noise reduction did you do just the back ground? Or did you do like you guide and do sample spots of the bird and do some on it also? Thanks and awesome image.

Hi Richard,

NR was applied on the bird as well sampling a spot from the dark bands on the tail.

best

[Bob Smith]

Thanks Arash, I've been intending to get Neat Image and your advice gave me the shove I needed.

[Isaac Grant]

Went back and looked at this one twice. Really like this image. Interesting pose and action. Processing is top notch. Your images have a very delicate look to them. Of course they are sharp. They just have a very pleasing color palette and a look that other images do not have. I really do have to get around to getting the guide and neat image.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hey Isaac thanks for kind words. Do you use DPP?

[Isaac Grant]

Yes. Start there on every picture. I convert every picture with DPP to a 16 bit TIFF. Before I do I typically don't do too much in DPP. I adjust highlights and shadows, some colors adjustments, sometimes contrast and white balance. Always leave default noise reduction and never sharpen there at all.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Isaac, with DPP I hardly have to change the colors or WB it is mostly very accurate and true to the scene. (I use AWB in camera). When I go to photoshop I am very careful with NR as it can degrade fine details and saturation, I use calibrated NR using neat image to persevere all the colors and details in the TIFF. I apply very very gentle NR to the bird but stronger NR to the BG to clean up the grain in the uniform areas that have no detail. I also dial back on the default NR in DPP to make sure no detail is lost. Artie and I cover this process in detail in the dpp4 guide and the post processing guide. It might sound a bit complicated but to be honest when you set it up you will be rolling out files like this in no time.

best

[Eric Dienesch]

really fantastic, the open mouth and the colours of the bird+background at all are very good. i think it shows also the potential of more dynamic from the new sensor

also the iso 4000 is remarkable, i have taken a few iso 3200 Kite and eagles shot and you are right, the exposure has to be goo, but then the 1dxII does make a good job.
and of course here it was your ability :)