Osprey with fish 2

[Michael Huggan]

Hi Everybody,

First of all many thanks to all those who made comments on my image, much appreciated and made me have a second look to what I was doing. I have posted an update of the image which is an improvement, but I feel can be further improved.

The first image I processed in Capture NX2, following the instructions in Jason P.Odell’s book ‘The Photographer’s Guide to Capture NX2’. I find Nikon’s Capture and NX2 is the only software that opens my NEF RAW files and represents what I saw. I usually open the file and adjust compensation, if required, and then open up in Photoshop CS2. However, on this occasion, I stayed with Capture NX2. It appears I was over enthusiastic in my processing (euphemism for screw up). The image now posted has been opened in Capture NX2 and brought straight into Photoshop CS2, and cropped. The only sharpening applied is when the file was reduced from the 16 bit Tiff to the web size. I accept the noise issue of the background and I do agree for a D3 with that much noise is surprising, so I ran this image through Neat Image noise reduction and the result is what you see. My other images of Ospreys against the blue sky do not show the same degree of noise. It appears that in certain situations such as busy green backgrounds do show this noise trait (same as my D2x).

I think this image works better smaller in the frame and that will show more of the environment – I will work on that.

I have Digital Basics by Arthur Morris and just obtained ‘Photoshop for Nature Photographers’ by Ellen and Tim Grey. I need to sit down and read them both. So, any advice on the best way to progress would be appreciated, particularly on Photoshop on screen tutorials.

That should answer your general questions.

Alex: I do have a sequence of images, about eight and the third shot shows the Osprey with both wings raised showing the underside of the near wing.

Tony: I have not done any selective sharpening on the web image. In fact as soon as I apply sharpening to the subject I get ‘halos’ at low settings, so I backed right off.

Fabiola: Thanks for your comments. They generally reflect the others. Love your images.

Arash: Camera settings; I used single point follow focus for this shot and all the others I took. I tried dynamic with all 51 points, the 9 point cluster, but they were not fast enough to track the flight path of the birds. Jim Neiger did tell me to use only the single point focus when I started the workshop, but I had to try my way first – Jim was right after all.

I see you live in Palo Alto – I lived in Los Altos for three years and my son was born at lountain View hospital, many many happy memories.

Thanks again for your help.

Michael Huggan
www.michaelhuggan.com

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The BG does look better in this one and I would tone down the whites, especially shoulder and legs.

[Arthur Morris]

Aside from the few bright whites (See "How white the whites?" in Educational Resources), the processing looks fine. I did not see the first post so I will add that the head is turned slightly away and there is a bit of funkiness in the very front of the eye.

Thanks for your purchase. The more you study the smarter you become. I have been studying Elen's book recently--read most if it while in the hospital in Leamington, Ontario last Saturday. See the blog for details: www.birdsasart-blog.com and scroll down a bit.

[Fabs Forns]

I see improvement over the first one, especially noise wise.
Did you bring the EXp up by any chance, although the D3 is quite forgiving if you need to do that.

I use the 9 point cluster in both the D3 and D300 and capture even Purple Martins in flight without any problems.