Dowitcher in flight

[arash_hazeghi]

Dowticher in early morning light



7D 400 f/5.6 f/8 1/1250sec ISO 400 sw: DPP 3.7 digital processing: crop and cloned out an oof tail in BG.

Hope you like it

[Morkel Erasmus]

lovely light and details here - banking pose captured nicely Arash.
I would sharpen slightly more?

[Joel Eade]

Really nice pose, the head does look a little soft compared to the tail. BG looks very nice but maybe a touch of NR? Cool shot.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the banking pose, eye contact and BG. I would not sharpen more since noise is already visible.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm sure you could selectively sharpen the face/neck/back areas further without any issues (you don't need to touch the blurred primaries anyhow). Great tail spread, and looks like you had some nice light to deal with :-)

[paul leverington]

Wow --what a tail spread!!! Terrific capture on this one Arash! I'm wondering if you could bring out the blue a bit more on the BG if that might not add some punch. It looks a little like dirty dishwater and I'm wondering if that was probably not the way it really looked. I'm thinking a sweet pure powder blue all the way here I guess. Noise is most definitely becoming apparent.

Paul

[Ofer Levy]

Awesome pose!! I guess the softness is a result of this being a big crop.

[arash_hazeghi]

I'm sure you could selectively sharpen the face/neck/back areas further without any issues (you don't need to touch the blurred primaries anyhow). Great tail spread, and looks like you had some nice light to deal with :-)

Thanks for the comments, it is interesting I recently upgrade my LCDs to two HP 24" (1920X1600) and on my screen these images look sharp, if I increase the sharpness I start seeing halo artifacts and digital look. I would be interested to know what kind of screen you are using, I just looked at these on a 15" MacBook screen and I can see the detail might look slightly coarse, so I am not sure...

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I looked at it on a 24'' iMac (1920x1600) and on a MacBook Pro (1440x900). There is not a big difference in my perception of sharpness between the two.

[arash_hazeghi]

I looked at it on a 24'' iMac (1920x1600) and on a MacBook Pro (1440x900). There is not a big difference in my perception of sharpness between the two.

Thanks Axel, this at least partly explains since I myself saw the images were a bit coarse looking on a 15" Mac laptop here (glossy 15" 1440X900 same as yours? ), the gamma and contrast is quite different between Mac and PC and that may partially explain, if you stick with one results are consistent but not so much between the two platforms.

BTW, just curious which iMac are you using that has a 24" 1920X1600 display? I just checked Apple website and I see they have these two options

21.5-inch models: 1920 by 1080 pixels
27-inch models: 2560 by 1440 pixels

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

I am asking because the HP LCD I got is actually a special version for scientific applications and does not have the usual 16:9 wide screen format, I'd surprised if Apple makes a non 16:9 display as they have no market for it.

I will post another version later to see how it looks on your screen.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Yes, it's an unibody MacBook Pro with glossy screen and the iMac line has just been updated a few days ago. The 24'' model is the previous one. The new 21.5 and 27'' have an IPS monitor and are LED-backlit, quite tempting. :)

[arash_hazeghi]

Yes, it's an unibody MacBook Pro with glossy screen and the iMac line has just been updated a few days ago. The 24'' model is the previous one. The new 21.5 and 27'' have an IPS monitor and are LED-backlit, quite tempting. :)

Yup I had seen the older ones too, I checked the spec again and I didn't find a 1920X1600res, it says 1920X1200 which is actually better than the newer 1920X1080 ones. The 1920X1600 is a very non-standard and unusual resolution for consumer screens and I would surprised if Apple had one because Apple buy their screens from Sony/Samsung.

http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/app...=mncolBtm;rnav

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Oops, that was a typo, 1920x1200 is correct.

[arash_hazeghi]

Oops, that was a typo, 1920x1200 is correct.

Thanks Axel, please check back later to see if you see a difference.

[Kiran Poonacha]

good notes above, liked the BG, loved the pose and the fantail here bhai..

[arash_hazeghi]

Here is a repost with more sharpening and selective NR

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Sharpening looks good in this version. There are some artifacts in the BG on the chest and far wing.

[Stu Bowie]

Lovely banking angle Arash, together with the fanned tail. I dont see much difference between your two posts, but both look fine to me.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks for the comments, it is interesting I recently upgrade my LCDs to two HP 24" (1920X1600) and on my screen these images look sharp, if I increase the sharpness I start seeing halo artifacts and digital look. I would be interested to know what kind of screen you are using, I just looked at these on a 15" MacBook screen and I can see the detail might look slightly coarse, so I am not sure...

Hay Arash, meant to comment earlier...I viewed this on my wife's 17" Toshiba Laptop, and on my PC, with "flat" 19" CRT monitor. 1024 x 768 on both. Your repost looks better on both monitors - but admittedly everything looks marginally sharper on the laptop, but even on the CRT I can easily see the difference between a "tack sharp" image, and one that needs a little extra sharpening. On both of your versions the tail looks like the sharpest area of the image (and quite sharp at that!). Could be caused by the plumage itself. Still, a very difficult image to capture - well done!!

[arash_hazeghi]

Hay Arash, meant to comment earlier...I viewed this on my wife's 17" Toshiba Laptop, and on my PC, with "flat" 19" CRT monitor. 1024 x 768 on both. Your repost looks better on both monitors - but admittedly everything looks marginally sharper on the laptop, but even on the CRT I can easily see the difference between a "tack sharp" image, and one that needs a little extra sharpening. On both of your versions the tail looks like the sharpest area of the image (and quite sharp at that!). Could be caused by the plumage itself. Still, a very difficult image to capture - well done!!

Thanks Dan,
These images are not really optimized for CRTs or LCD with such a coarse resolution 1024X768 :eek: I won't be surprised if they look soft or strange.

Thanks for comments any ways.