King of the Catch

[Jay Ing]

This is not an action shot but a post action poser. Just missed arriving early enough to catch him flying back with this whale of a meal but at least he showed off for a few seconds before taking off again. Will go back to see if he'll give more as it's clearly his spot. Did clone work on shadow thrown by fish tail and OOF rocks on RH side.

A1+ 2.0 TC, HH

1600/3200/f8

C1P/PS/Topaz DnAi

[Randy Stout]

Jay:

I like the fish, pose,exposure.

The feather detail on head and neck seem a bit too "smoothed" out for my taste.

Some noise down in the darker areas below.

From a compositional stand point, I might crop a bit off the right, because with his gaze angle, I don't think you need quite that much negative space there. Just personal taste on that one.

Which lens did you use?

Thanks

Randy

[dankearl]

It is a cool pose but you had a tiny bit of motion going on unless you used NR on the bird which I assume you didn't...wish the fish was turned...

[John Mack]

Nice fish and pose.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful colours and composition but the image lacks detail to me, sorry to say but it looks soft. Is it NR? ... the shutter speed was fast - where was the point of focus?

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Jay ... nice capture , with the iced cake of fish adding so much .
Nice color , tones and comp .

Fine detail , sharpness got lost somewhere .... on the way . Funny enough the BG is quite noisy for the soooooo good Sony A1 and the subject does have a plastic overall look ..... maybe something went wrong in your processing ???!!!!

TFS Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jay, I've looked at this several times, but as presented, it's a non starter for me, albeit I agree with Andreas that somethings has gone a miss in either the PP, or in capture/PP. I think you did well with the tail of the fish not to cover the eye and I quite like the crop.

For me the 'critical' sharpness isn't there and probably compounded by applying any NR to a Tiff rather than at the raw stage. As you say NR was applied, but why is it more noticeable in the LHC? Colour can also be improved adding more richness to the overall capture. The perch is ugly, with snipped off branches/stems, you could easily put a new one up as KF love new perches. Is this FF or a crop, if cropped, by a lot? Was there any cloning around the feet, areas appear smudged?

TFS
Steve

[Dorian Anderson]

Yeah, this one doesn't stand up to the recent flight shots you've posted. Details are smoothed across the bird and fish, and the split background (water/earth) doesn't work behind the clunky perch. You're lucky to get one low like this though, so maybe you can find a better shooting angle next time she settles down.

[Jay Ing]

I'll try and reply to the multiple questions and observations in one fell swoop. Thanks for all your feedback BTW. I'm going to give another frame from this "Set" to try again.
But first, to answer the Qs:

Randy:
The feather detail on head and neck seem a bit too "smoothed" out for my taste.

I didn't think Topaz had smoothed things over too much as the hear behind his eyes was quite pulled back like that... but... maybe the NR was overworked. We can see how the redo does, but at least in this frame I didn't think the NR did SO much to the smoothed hair/head feathers... but maybe more than should be.

Dan:

Yeah, I wish the fish was turned too. I just happened upon him as I came to this (one of several possible sighting spots) and he was already seated with the catch. I only got a few frames off (shooting through a break in the vegetation - so there's probably the movement... I'd hurriedly got to a break in the greenery and had little time to "settle" myself ... probably was huffing and puffing a tad too... can't recall).

Jonathon:

I'm not sure where the exact POF was. I know I've heard Rawdigger can identify this. Does C1P or PS reveal your exact focal point?

Andreas:

Yeah, I'm not sure what I causing the noise. 3200 is fast to be sure. But with the KF I had no idea if I'd get a flight/dive or seated shot so I went for action. It was sunny by this time though. As for softness, I'm not sure why it's soft. I have used NR on the bird as well. Evidently I'm not getting all I should be out of Topaz. Hmmmm. As for "plastic" I'll try and redo an earlier frame and see if I can deplasticize it to some degree :)

Steve:

As you say NR was applied, but why is it more noticeable in the LHC? Colour can also be improved adding more richness to the overall capture. The perch is ugly, with snipped off branches/stems, you could easily put a new one up as KF love new perches. Is this FF or a crop, if cropped, by a lot? Was there any cloning around the feet, areas appear smudged?

Not sure why more in the LHC. NR was applied across the frame. No work was done (cline or stamping) to the LHC. Yeah, I might try and give him a new perch. That's maybe a good idea. This is a crop. I'll post the FF showing my rotation and also the crop (it will be for the frame I'm going to use for a redo as it might be a bit sharper but the crop is basically the same... looks like a 50% crop to me maybe a tad more). No closing around the feet - just as shot.

What I'm going to do is post a link to my dropbox with the FF and the crop. (again for a frame just before this one) I'm going to give it a new go and would welcome any of you who are interested to do the same. Got to get my PP out of the way of good images it seems (from the feedback on my last few postings). Maybe it's my eyes. That would be a handy but disappointing to discover.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Jay I use Olympus software to illustrate my focal point. I have been told there is an App that will show focal points in ACR and Lightroom but I don't know if this App is approved/accredited in any way.

[Steve Kaluski]

With Canon you can using it’s own Software DPP, doesn’t Sony have a similar option??? Ask Arash.

[arash_hazeghi]

hey buddy send me the RAW if you have it. something went wrong here.... looks like you ran NR on the bird instead of BG. bird is smooth and BG is noisy

nothing to do with focus...