Whimbrel

[Joseph Przybyla]

Dottie and I went to Ft. Desoto yesterday morning. Our goal was to find and photograph the pair of Whimbrels that had been reported this winter. With Artie's help we found them exactly where he had found them. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 500mm F/5.6 VR AF-S ED PF, camera and lens supported by a Oben carbon fiber monopod with a Wimberly MonoGimbal head
1/4000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 500 Auto 1 WB, image captured at 500mm (750mm 35nn Equivalent)
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2021 and Neat Image for noise reduction when needed, removed specular highlights on the bill
Cropped for composition and presentation

[kevin Hice]

Looks good Joe. Details and colors are great and the background goes well with the bird. Still see some noise I switched over to Topaz and I think it does quite a bit better and more choices . Easier to use too. Nice capture. TFS

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot I like it, I try to enjoy images rather than destroy them but I do see some noise which usually doesn't bother me but in this case I sense two issues, maybe better noise reduction would be good and possibly a little less sharpening. I get the impression the two are fighting one another. Purists will say NR is perfectly adequate, others prefer Neat Image but I find Topaz a piece of cake, it needs relatively little in terms of modification.... and that is why some prefer the former!!

[arash_hazeghi]

image is tack sharp and well exposed as is for me.

Funny I am very sensitive to noise but I don't see noise here, I think these are fine feather texture plus water drops that give the illusion of noise. on the bill maybe there is some but on the feathers doesn't look like noise to me....I could be wrong....the D500 has no noise at ISO 500 under normal conditions

TFS

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Joe ... nice close up of this guy .
Lovely light , nice tone and color . Good to see some life in that eye .

I do agree about the noise / sharpening that is mentioned above .... think it is more of a sharpening " issue" . My gut feeling is saying ... that the " texture slider" was used , but I might be wrong .

Well worth to " revisit " the file if you like , Joe .

Nice work

TFS Andreas

[Andreas Liedmann]

Still see some noise I switched over to Topaz and I think it does quite a bit better and more choices . Easier to use too. Nice capture. TFS

Kevin i do kindly disagree about the choices in Topaz compared to Neat Image .
As Topaz has just limited presets to offer , whereas Naet Image allows you to control everything from different frequencies to sharpening . Just my take .....

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joe ... nice close up of this guy .
Lovely light , nice tone and color . Good to see some life in that eye .

I do agree about the noise / sharpening that is mentioned above .... think it is more of a sharpening " issue" . My gut feeling is saying ... that the " texture slider" was used , but I might be wrong .

Well worth to " revisit " the file if you like , Joe .

Nice work

TFS Andreas

Hi Andreas, thank you for viewing and commenting, very much appreciated. After reading your comments I went and checked the Original/Master file and also the 16 bit TIFF. No Texture slider used on either, actually I rarely used Texture or Clarity. Maybe the sharpening was a tad high in Lightroom other than the regular tone mapping and cleaning up a few out of focus specular highlights in the waves/water the image is how it was that morning. Thanks again Andreas, I always value your comments.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Joe .... are you using the masking option in LR when you sharpen the image ? If not I would try it , at least you can force LR to sharpen only the high frequencies and not the low frequencies.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joe .... are you using the masking option in LR when you sharpen the image ? If not I would try it , at least you can force LR to sharpen only the high frequencies and not the low frequencies.

Hi Andreas, your sharp my friend. I always use the masking when sharpening in Lightroom but for some unknown reason I had not for this image. I corrected it but did not repost. To me that is the best feature of sharpening in Lightroom, seeing and controlling where the sharpening occurs. Thanks again, Andreas. Here is a edit with masking.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Joe, It looks as if you fond the Whimbrels! Lovely image right on sun angle.

with love, a

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Joe .... sorry for being sharp , my intention is just to " help or analyze " what could be improved or avoided in processing from my personal view . Hoping folks think about it .....

BTW the RP looks better , IMHO
Cheers Andreas

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joe .... sorry for being sharp , my intention is just to " help or analyze " what could be improved or avoided in processing from my personal view . Hoping folks think about it .....

BTW the RP looks better , IMHO
Cheers Andreas

Hi Andreas, I didn't take or think you comments and suggestions as being sharp. My reply was explaining how I normally work on a image. I do almost everything in Lightroom, including sharpening. I once read in one of Jeff Schewe's books about Lightroom that the Masking slider would take about twenty steps in Photoshop. Anyways, no problem, your comments were helpful and another set of younger eyes are always helpful.