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Thread: Avocet Family

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    Default Avocet Family

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    This is what I believe to be a family of American Avocets. Adult male, female, and juvenile in the back. I know right away that it will be pointed out that I should have allowed more space between the edges and the birds. Look, I practically laid down on my chest in the mud and waited patiently (while getting a crick in my neck) for these birds to slowly move in this close, and I should have zoomed out? OK, I should probably have. Anyway, my question is about whether I should have cranked up the ISO to get all the birds in focus, or allowed for the front bird to be in focus only, as in the photo? Or is this just a mater of taste? ISO 100? I had good light, and thought I'd take advantage of it. Of course any comments and criticism would be appreciated.
    Sony A-700 Tamron 200-500mm@500mm 1/1250sec f6.3 ISO100 Sony HVL-F56AM 5:45PM 6-17-08

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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    It's tough to pull off enough DOF to get three birds in focus when they're in a single-file line like this. That said, I almost never use ISO 100 for bird photography. I'm more of an ISO 400-800 kind of person because you never know when something will suddenly happen that requires more shutter speed or more DOF. I don't know what your camera does with higher ISO, but using 400-800 gives you a lot more flexibility with your camera settings. I like the low angle here, although as you mentioned, I'd like to see a bit of separation between the birds. I also like the eye contact and the water droplet. The image appears to have had NR applied to it as the fine feather detail is absent. Thanks for asking a good question!

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    Thanks Doug. Actually I almost always use ISO 200 if the light is good. 400 is OK, but anything higher probably needs a noise reduction program. On this image did not use a noise reduction program, and the lack of detail was due to the USM.
    Heres what I did. I may be doing this wrong, but using set numbers doesn't seem to work too well with me. Set the amount to 300, threshold zero, and moved the radius up until the nasty halo appeared, then backed off. The image was very grainy, like I knew it would be. Then I increasing the threshold until the noise disappeared. The problem at this point was where the white and black feathers came together. I couldn't seem to fix that without upping the threshold further, which meant noise reduction and losing feather detail. Of course I didn't notice this, and I'm glad you pointed this out.

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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    I'd be interested in seeing an unedited version of the photo. Would you be willing to post it on this thread?

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    Doug: My main question was about DOF and a group. You have made me aware of lack of feather detail. In the sake of simplicity (not including birds that are out of focus already) I've included an unedited, un- cropped, and only resampled image of one brd that was taken within minutes of the first image. All other parameters(shutter speed, ISO, etc. are identical to the image I first posted. Hope this helps

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    I am fine with the framing. It is likely that it would have been impossible to get all of the birds in sharp focus at such close range. You did the right thing in focusing on the front bird. I would wish for a more pleasing arrangement of the subjects.
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    Roman Kurywczak
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    Hi William,
    Will go with Artie on this one...........agree that you probably wouldn't be able to get enough DOF at this angle...........now if they were separated a bit and the back one went OOF........that wouldn't be too bad IMO.

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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    Hi William. I believe that I said basically the same thing about DOF that Artie and Roman did in my original post. It'd be nice to get all the birds in focus, but it's not likely given the fact that they are stacked one behind the other. I'll have a look at your other photo a little later today. Thanks for uploading it!

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    Lifetime Member Doug Brown's Avatar
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    Here's a repost of image #2. I increased both brightness and contrast, and did some sharpening. At 800 pixels, there's not as much feather detail present as I would have hoped for. Let me know what you think of the repost.

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    I'm sorry Doug. I unintentionally threw you a red herring. The second image, as I now notice, is underexposed, and feather detail problems would seem likely. My main question, at this point, is why there are feather detail problems in the original image, and indeed as I now look at the RAW image there are. For comparison, I examined the settings to numerous other images I took of the avocets, I notice that the sharpest focus was at ISO200, F9 and 1/1000 sec. The original image was ISO100, 1/1250sec and F6.3. I am convinced that the closeness of the subjects made focusing errors more likely and that a greater depth of field would have made focusing less critical. I think my big mistake was the ISO 100, and your advice about this in your first post concerning the image was quite apt. I appreciate the time you spent, as well as other comments about DOF by other members.~onlybill

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