I'm always glad when I can get a pair together, and personally I don't mind that the female overlaps the male in this case; she doesn't block any critical identifying features. Others may disagree. But this has some problems. I thought the focus point was right on, but even at f/11 the male is not really sharp. Perhaps this is inevitable if both birds aren't in the same plane? The considerable crop (down to 50% of original width) is causing a lot of noise. Is there a way to deal with this? Would Topaz DeNoise or Noise Ninja help this one? Comments appreciated.
D90 with VR 80-400 @ 400 mm, f/11; ISO 800; 1/1000 s.; matrix metering, aperture priority.
Noise wise I'm liking Topaz more and more. Seems to get rid of noise but doesn't affect the sharpness as much as others. Applying Noise Ninja I usually will do in a layer and only the bg.
The overlap as presented is fine you cleared the head nicely .... overlapped heads would have been problematic. I didn't see see exp comp but the whites area at the edge and don't see much detail, need just about perfect light for this species.
Dof wise not much you can do, crop did make it easier since they were further away and you get more dof. The one thing I wish you would have done is getting the HA, rear is just fine front bird is looking away. With the slight head turn the eye would have looked better.
...btw with your current set up is best to use a tripod if possible, taking the crop factor into consideration is a 600 lens !!! ... would allow you to lower the ISO since high shutter speed is not as important !!
Hi Bill,
I like the composition and capture, would have liked to have seen the first duck looking your way, the head angle is a tad off...very good advise given by Mr. Forns, I also like the color and quality of the water...:cool: looking forward to your next one...:)
Alfred and Gus have covered the tech part. I just wanted to add that I now use Topaz DeNoiser after reading about it from Alfred. I like it. It is easy to use and seem to take care of the noise while maintaining sharpness. I would only run my other noise reduction plugin on the background but I do not hesitate to try Topaz DeNoiser on fine details.
Not being familiar with Topaz can someone tell me what is the difference between the DeNoise for $80 and the Topaz Vivacity PS plug in for $50 that has 6 filters including noise?
Hi William, The DeNoiser plugin is specific to handling noise and has more control than the Vivacity Plugin. The Vivacity Plugin has a denoiser application but it cautions you that the DeNoiser Plugin can handle nosie better and from my experience the DeNoiser is better for noise. The other filter are interesrting but I rarely use them. Therefore if your just looking for help with noise I would go with the DeNoiser Plugin. Does this answer you question? If not let me know and I will try again.
Noisy Scaup
