Trumpeter - Snohomish, Washington

[Terry Olmsted]

Still trying to get it right :) Taken over Shadow Lake, in the Snohomish River Valley on January 11, 2008

Canon XTi 400mm f5.6L 1/1250s f5.6 ISO 400 exp comp 0

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Good eye contact and moment. I like the open bill but would like to see more of the left wing. Is this a heavy crop? There is not much detail and the wings look noisy, and so does the BG.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks very much Axel. Two things - first I think I over-compressed the posted file. Here is the file at a lower compresssion. I had run neat image to reduce noise, but it really reduced the overall image quality in my opinion. Here is the image without noise reduction. Any help I can get on noise filters would be appreciated.
Terry

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Terry, I'm no expert, but use ACDsee for cropping because it has a thirds grid. IMO, it has the simplest noise reduction of any product, one click and that's it. How do you think it did? . . . Gus

[Terry Olmsted]

HI Gus, thanks very much. I think the noise reduction worked, but there was a loss of detail on the bird. Interestingly, the original had little noise on my monitor - I am begining to think I need to get a better monitor. Also, because of our often poor light, I have gotten so I don't mind some noise. Thanks again.
Terry

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The less compressed image looks definitely better but still needs NR on the BG.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks very much Axel. I will research getting a better noise reduction program.
Terry

[Linda Robbins]

Noise issues aside, I like the flight pose and good head angle in your image. Agree that the less compressed image looks much better.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks very much, Linda. The swans and setting here are quite wonderful - provided there is light :)
Terry