On Further Reflection

[Chris Korman]

On Further Reflection...



400 mm f/5.6, 1/2000 sec, f/8, ISO 800, Cropped in, Contrast/Vibrance to water, Removed 3 small dark spots on water.

[Doug Brown]

Pretty cool image Chris. Nice flight pose with a reasonably nice reflection. Fine detail is somewhat lacking; was this much of a crop? For fast fliers like this, I would have gone for a bit more shutter speed by opening up your aperture a little.

[Chris Korman]

This a 4 Megapixel crop from a 21 MP camera. So there is some distance that is being made up for in the crop. When you say fine detail, what do you see lacking? Is it due to motion blur or the crop or misfocus?

[arash_hazeghi]

I agree with Doug that the details are lacking, it is hard to tell what is the cause at this size, can you post a 100% crop of the bird?

[Chris Korman]

Here's the requested crop:

This crop represents a 0.4 MP portion from the total image size of 21 MP.





To me I can see the patterns in the feathers and his slightly open beak and the claws on his feet.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Chris, thanks for posting, I think there are two issues here

1) the critical focus is on the far wing, leaving the head a bit soft so sharpening the head will just bring out more noise.

2) it is a very big crop, even if the head was tack sharp it would be very difficult to see the fine plumage details.

This is one fast and tough to get bird, you did well given that you "only" had a 400mm lens, unfortunately not much you can do, just keep trying and hope he comes closer next time. eventually you will get it :)

Best

[Chris Korman]

Arash, Thanks for your take on this.