Welcome Swallow Quest #1

[Duncan Groenewald]

One of the sharper images I captured in my quest for a good swallow shot with better light, a better angle and more in focus detail.

This image is 8200 x 4600 - so almost full frame 50mp. Best viewed on a 5K display if you have one - click here to view/download the full resolution image as a lot of detail is discarded in the downsampled image.

A1/100-400GM at 400mm

1/8000s f/8 iso6400



Processed with DxO PL4 and Affinity Photo to mask the background and downsample - which is not something I would normally do - and then I ran into posterisation and all kinds of issues.

Usually I set NR luminance to 20 because I can't really see the noise when viewed on a 5K display. It doesn't appear to show up in print either but I have little experience with prints.

I was pretty surprised when I saw these on my computer, so I am interested to know what you think.

There is a link to the RAW file in the BPN Help forum post of mine so feel free to process it your way if you feel inclined.

[Wayne Niz]

Wow..... that is insane. Well done

[Kurt Bowman]

Great head detail! Really nice wing position and light. My tiniest nit is I wish you had a bit more room around him, I am someone who usually crops pretty tight, but this is even tight for me. I know you said it is almost full frame, so I would add some canvas which should be easy to do with that blue water BG. Really nice work!!!

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Duncan .. cracking shot of the swallow , surprised that you were able to capture a full frame of these bullets .... lift my hat for that .
This version does look better in terms of tones , compared to the previous tighter shot .

Personally !!!! .... I am not too excited about the sharpness and details . Here on my screen ( 32" 4K NEC ) they do look overcooked .
Interesting to see which editing path you are going to use .... talking about the used software .

TFS Andreas

[arash_hazeghi]

I like this one much better than the other one, still very tight but at least you can add canvas, the details are superb on my NEC 4K reference monitor, no doubt about that but it is over sharpened. I would half the amount of sharpening applied

Edit: I'll download you RAW later and process it for you

[Brian Sump]

Kudos Duncan, you captured the bane of most photographers existence very nicely!

This one is much better indeed with better wing position too!

Colors are strong and great eye contact. Agree that it is over-sharpened for my taste, but that's a simple correction.

Well done sir!

[arash_hazeghi]

I looked at the RAW file, the main issue with this image was the light angle that was coming from the side, this created some shadows and a bit much too contrast, it's ideal to have the sun squarely behind your neck, but sometimes it just doesn't happen that way and that's what makes BIF a challenging subject . While some highlight/shadow adjustment can be used to open up the face area, but it will make the shallow look a bit unnatural (especially the eye area)

here is a try with less sharpening plus some added canvas for breathing room around the swallow.

[Duncan Groenewald]

I looked at the RAW file, the main issue with this image was the light angle that was coming from the side, this created some shadows and a bit much too contrast, it's ideal to have the sun squarely behind your neck, but sometimes it just doesn't happen that way and that's what makes BIF a challenging subject . While some highlight/shadow adjustment can be used to open up the face area, but it will make the shallow look a bit unnatural (especially the eye area)

here is a try with less sharpening plus some added canvas for breathing room around the swallow.

That's really nice - darker than I would normally go but more natural colours which I prefer and extra space certainly works really well. Thanks.

Unfortunately the light at this location is always going to be from just the wrong angle - but apart from that it is a perfect wind tunnel full of swallow food when conditions are right. Although in summer with a change in prevailing wind direction the swallows should be facing 90 degrees to the left on the opposite bank so the light could be better if they are still feeding there - of course the insects might have all hatched by then.

What did you mean by over sharpened, were you referring to the downsampled image or the full resolution image ?

[arash_hazeghi]

I know what you mean by light being always off, I have a swallow nest nearby too which has a similar condition (side light) for that reason it has not produced any keepers for me. When the light is right the beautiful iridescence of the dorsal feathers really makes the shot

I was referring to the dowsampled image that was a bit oversharpened (pane 1). In RAW conversion I apply very gentle sharpening, close to def values of Capture One. I do most of the sharpening at the least step before I save the file. If the original is sharpened much the down sampling can create aliasing and halo artifacts sometimes

I sometimes find it difficult to sharpen the files of the A1 for web posting, the files contain and incredible amount of fine detail and after downsampling sometimes they appear over sharpened in which case I back off sharpening.

hope this helps

[Duncan Groenewald]

I know what you mean by light being always off, I have a swallow nest nearby too which has a similar condition (side light) for that reason it has not produced any keepers for me. When the light is right the beautiful iridescence of the dorsal feathers really makes the shot

I was referring to the dowsampled image that was a bit oversharpened (pane 1). In RAW conversion I apply very gentle sharpening, close to def values of Capture One. I do most of the sharpening at the least step before I save the file. If the original is sharpened much the down sampling can create aliasing and halo artifacts sometimes

I sometimes find it difficult to sharpen the files of the A1 for web posting, the files contain and incredible amount of fine detail and after downsampling sometimes they appear over sharpened in which case I back off sharpening.

hope this helps

yes, thanks, good to know as I have never really attempted decent quality downsampling for the web - it certainly needs a bit more care than I would have expected.

The colours and composition are of more interest to me though - it is surprisingly difficult to reproduce your colours and even extending that background is quite tricky. Pretty handy idea though as one has little or no control over composition with these guys - 20 grams in 35 knots of wind it becomes a statistical game getting any part of them in the frame, let alone looking in the general direction of the camera so you have to deal with whatever the framing is.

I have a few others like this one I will try follow your suggestions for processing with and post for comment.

On another note I have had a few questions on 'how the heck' and I did a YouTube video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-2VXvmXUxQ) a while ago if anyone is interested (still working on my David Attenborough skills though so don't say you haven't been warned) - not sure if the explanation in the video is any good but feel free to ask if you have any questions.

For anyone in or visiting Melbourne it is a well know birding location and anyone can get permission to go there - just send me an email or Facebook message and I'll be a bit more specific. Not sure if you will have much success without an a9 or a1 but definitely worth a try if the northerly wind is blowing and the swallows are about.

[Arthur Morris]

If I am understanding correctly, the bird was too tight in the original frame with the 100-400. Since it is sharp, that is quite a good problem to have. Good advice above on sun angle ... Adding canvas with a blue sky image is a snap with Content Aware Crop.

with love, artie

[Duncan Groenewald]

"Content Aware Crop" - learn something new every day. It's choppy water but worth a try I guess.

Thanks again.

[Duncan Groenewald]

Here is my updated attempt. Affinity Photo does have something similar to Content Aware Crop it seems - the Inpainting Brush Tool which seems to work. There are a couple of straight edges still visible that I forgot to remove.

To me this looks similar to Arash's version - colours not quite the same and detail still not quite up up there.

Arash somehow you seem to have been able to retain slightly more fine detail and better contrast in that detail but I couldn't find your A1 downsampling guide for sale anywhere .

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Duncan ... here is my version .
Processed in C1 ( all sharpening and luminance NR set to 0)
Export to PS , minor tonal and color adjustments , sharpening and noise reduction , downsizing and save for web .

Slightly different WB and color grading than yours .... matter of taste .

WDYT ??

Cheers Andreas