I only spent $5 to get this sandhill crane!!:p Went down to Crandon Gardens today for the first time and didnt expect to find the sandhill, but there were a few there.
There's a problem with the pic that really ruins this it for me, but I cant correct it for lack of the proper tools. I wont say what it is just to see if everyone else can figure it out. Plus, I want to know if anyone sees anything else wrong with it.
Processed with Capture NX. Cropped a horizontal image for compostion, established B&W control points, D-Lighted the pic, established a color control point on the neck of the bird to control some over exposure, a round of sharpening, and then another round of sharpening only on the eye.
Nikon D300, Sigma 50-500 at 135mm, f/10, 1/250s, -1.3EV, ISO 200, flash fill -5.0EV, better beamer, handheld.
After previewing the post, I have a question. Is there anyway to post a jpeg that looks remotely close to the RAW image? There is a ton of detail and sharpness lost in the conversion.
Good composition and beautiful bird...hey Bosque is only one place with Sandhill Cranes glad you found some at Crandon!
I wish the BG was more blurred and perhaps using f10 didn't help with that. The BG causes the bird not to stand out as much as it could have. Could use a little more detail in the feathers as well. I am guessing the slow shutter speed did that.
How are you handling your conversion to JPG?
If you don't care about preserving your EXIF data, Save for Web generally does a better job of compressing but keeping decent quality than does Save As.
Why do you have your flash set to red-eye reduction with the BB?
Hey Harold, nice that you found a Sandhill Crane at Crandon. I see them from time to time up at Okeeheelee as well...closer for you! The biggest thing that jumps out at me is that it looks like you missed the focus. The feathers on the breast are not sharp, while the background is razor sharp. Not a lot that can be done there other than to watch those focus points closely when you return! I'd like it if the background were less complex for this guy too, but it can be hard to control their location. ;) Going to a larger aperture would help some.
As far as the compression question...it's the very detailed background that is the biggest culprit. Since such a large area of the image is very complex it can be quite difficult to compress it down to fit within the site guidelines...if there were large blurred area you'd have no problem at all.
jim, i did my conversion in capture nx because all the research i have done tells me that it does the best raw conversion for nikon produced images. the red eye reduction setting is an in camera setting that i think i got from either moose peterson's D300 camera settings or someone elses from nikonians.org. curious as to why you ask. i know with the D50 and flash with BB, redeye was a big problem for me and the D300 has been a blessing as far as that is concerned.
judd as far as my focal point, i went back and checked, you are right. just under the beak. cant believe i missed that. BUT, in the raw image the bird is tack sharp and there is tons more detail in the bird. i can see now that the missing the focal point will exaggerate the problems in the jpeg conversion.
87 pictures today and maybe 1 keeper. not a good ratio. back to the drawing board!!!!!!
I asked about red eye reduction because I've always heard that with the BB you set the flash to TTL and 50mm, but never heard of the red eye reduction mode being used. Thought you might have been onto something that I didn't know about.
Even if Capture NX is the best for RAW conversion, I'm not sure that translates into processing for web posting, but I'll leave that part to others as I've not used the program even once.
I had a 300-ish image day with zero keepers not long ago. Sucks doesn't it.
Harold I don't recall ever seeing these guys in the water at Crandon !!!!! I think with a good head angle and the point of focus on the eye would have made a huge difference Judd hit the nail on the head Also a great point is not going for dof when the bg is cluttered as George pointed out In this case focus on the eye and let it rip !!!
btw don't worry about the 0 for 300 .... at least your hobby is photography and not baseball :D:D:D:)
Your last version does look pretty good! I think I'm often guilty of the same thing as you, using too high an f/stop and having DOF cover up focus problems plus get too much background in focus. Since I do mostly macros, I tend to keep my f/stop between f/8 and f/13 then when I switch to a subject that's more in the distance, I really need to open it up more and in the excitement of seeing the image, I forget to change settings.
It aint Bosque, but....
