The shot was taken in diminishing light . There was tall grass in the line of the bird and had a tough time getting the tripod steady enough to get the best possible shot . The image is quite noisy . How best to process this image .
Canon 50D, 840mm, f/11, 1/800, ISO 800, +1/3 EC
Last edited by Doug Brown; 12-27-2009 at 03:37 PM.
Reason: Added EXIF data
From a tech standpoint f/11 was probably more than enough DOF. You could have opened up to f/7.1 and dropped your ISO quite a bit. Here's a repost with some NR on the BG, and a combination of a contrast boost, some sharpening, and some selective NR on the bird. I also darkened the BG a little. What do you think?
Doug's repost looks much better. Nice soft light and HA. Fine feather detail seems a bit lacking. Do note that with the 50D, it really helps to expose to the right when working at higher ISO values.
Beautiful bird here and captured well. It turn good for you.
Here is my try at pp correction.
A couple of passes (mild) with a NR Action I have.
Mid-tone adjustment with USM layer (masked and brushed)
Curves (S) on layer reduced in opacity to 85%
Sharpening with more to dark the light pixels on Layer (masked and brushed)
Edit: The image was a bit hard to work in low bit resolution without getting posterization in the sky. The NR Action I used is for PS7 or CS programs and works well on some images, at other times I use NeatImage Pro. If anyone would like the NR Action I would be glad to send it, just contact me with a personal email addy and I will forward it with instructions.
Last edited by Kim Rollins; 12-27-2009 at 06:57 PM.
Reason: Add
Nonnie, Can you please show us the original capture. I would like to see how much of a crop this is. Thanks. If you need help doing that, please ask.
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Thank you Doug for your time to have look and reprocess the image . No doubt it looks much better than my post . Thats why I am here , to learn .
Aidan, Thanks for your point , I will try your suggestion on the exposure part .
I would have not posted this shot incase I wanted to put my best shoe forward . I feel this forum is different and sometimes I will see how to improve on shots gone wrong .
Noise Reduction
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