Great Blue Heron - a birds eye view

[Jamie Douglas]

Just been sorting through some images I took back in December when I was testing my 7D for the first time. I love the eye contact and thought this would be a good one to share. A little noise in the background that I can't see to remove successfully (see smudge marks on the right, these are not cloning marks). I spent a couple of days at the local park where there is a heron nest site so they are pretty comfortable around humans.

Techs...

Shooting Date/Time 28/12/2009 1:01:15 PM
Camera Model Canon EOS 7D
Lens EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

Av( Aperture Value ) 7.1
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/500
Exposure Compensation -1
ISO Speed 1600
Focal Length 200.0mm
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
AF Mode AI Servo AF

[arash_hazeghi]

nice pose and detail, I don't see that much noise in the BG, just some blotchiness due to NR, head is a bit softer than neck area and lacking in detail. for a shot like this that the bird is big in the frame, there is no need to run NR on the parts of bird that are in sharp focus, just run NR on the OOF areas but leave the other areas alone :) once you down-sample and sharpen carefully noise will not be visible. NR kills feather details, should use only when it is really noisy and then with care.

[arash_hazeghi]

Here is an example, this was also with the 7D and ISO 1600, I have ran chroma NR on the bird only using Canon DPP and then slight luminance NR on BG, notice how the feather details have been preserved.




7D, 400 f/5.6, ISO 1600

[arash_hazeghi]

Here is a quick tutorial showing how the above image was processed:


http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=54826

[Lance Peters]

Hi Jamie - Arash hit the nail on the head - excellent advice.
More DOF would have required a increase in ISO - should be OK with the 7D.
Good advice on the NR also!!

[Alfred Forns]

Great thread .... great points by Arash and worth keeping in mind, little details make the difference !!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Jamie,very informative remarks by Arash. I find in order to reall see what a black backround looks like is to put it in PS and put black around the image. Any defects really pop out at you... good effort..

[Dave Leroy]

You got really nice and close Jamie. Good for you.

I like the pose.

A really good link provided by Arash. I missed that the first time around.

[Jamie Douglas]

Thank you Arash, I had forgotten about that forum even though I had left a comment :). I remember at the time I was looking at this image and having a tough time reducing the noise and keeping the detail. Many thanks and your advice is exactly what I was looking for when I posted this image.

I'll get back you over the weekend and let you know how successful I was.

Thanks everyone

Jamie