Painted bunting

[Harold Davis]

i captured this guy at corkscrew swamp sanctuary. my question is: is the reason for the noise in the bird because this is a 50% crop or is there something else i could have done like having a bigger lens, higher iso with faster shutter speed, etc?

nikon d300, sigma 50-500 at 500mm, f/6.3, 1/250s, -1EV, ISO 500, flash fill at -3.3EV with better beamer

thanks for looking and i appreciate all comments and especially the leadership from our mentors:)

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Harold, this is a beautiful bird and picture. Sorry that I can not be more technical, it's only because I'm relatively new at correcting images.
For sure a beautiful shot.

[Harold Davis]

thanks, oscar. i think we are in the right place!!

[Gus Cobos]

Harold,
Very nice image. I love the colors. The little fellow looks a bit blured. What focal length were you using and were you on tripod or hand holding?

Gus...:cool:

[Harold Davis]

500mm on the tripod. yep on the blur/soft bird. everytime i tried to add usm, i got artifacts galore!

[john crookes]

One thing that will help your colors is to convert to srgb for posting on the web

long lens technique will hlp any bluring along with a faster shutter speed
1/250th on the border if there was wind or a slight breez even the branch could have slight movement.

add to that a 50 percent crop and you did weel to have what you got here

the d300 can go to 800 iso and even 1200 if you really need it

John

[Alfred Forns]

Harold with good light you could go to 1250 as John says Usually like to keep it under I think it looks excellent and has a super feel !!! Would crop a bit from the bottom to get the bird out of the middle half

Don't have a problem with sharpness at all here I like the overall soft mood of the picture and the bird is plenty sharp You do amazingly well with your set up !!! Big Congrats !!!

[Dave Phillips]

really nice in the soft setting behind the oof leaves....sharpening is already at max.
I like "as is"

sRGB conversion also recommended

[Nonda Surratt]

Harold,

I love the scene and the colors!

[Judd Patterson]

Wow, this is a stunner, Harold! The soft mood works for me and the gorgeous colors (complimented by all the green) are wonderful. Great work! As far as noise in the bird, did you have to increase the exposure a lot during RAW conversion? At ISO 500 and the D300 I would expect really low noise, so perhaps it was just underexposure that you corrected in Photoshop that accentuated the shadow noise...try to expose these images to the right (without blowing highlights) to keep your noise low.

[Harold Davis]

i didnt have to expose it a lot in processing. in the original, the bird is fairly small in the frame. i just think i was trying to do too much. thanks for the kind words!!