Peafowl Portrait

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

This peafowl showed up in the semi-rural neighborhood of some relatives that live near Napa Valley. Probably feral rather than wild, is not shy around humans. Surprised me, though, when I found him standing just outside the house.



D3 + 300f/2.8 + TC20EIII (600mm) f/8 1/200 -1.0EV ISO3200 HH (VR on )
Detailing, NR, Lab Mode curves for color, sharpening. Cropped for aspect ratio, close to ff.

I know I was well below the ss for handholding 600mm, but was my only choice at the time. Managed to get a few in focus...

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Michael,

I really like this shot. It is interesting, unique and tells a story. Nice detail for HH at a FL of 600MM and a shutter of 1/200. The best field technique is the one that works and IMO this works. You controlled the frame well, produced a nice portrait with a beautiful and complementary background.

[Randy Rimland]

it's maybe camera movement or the tc but there is a noticeable loss of feather detail (smearing).
I have the new tc as well and have only used it on a tripod and even then filing the frame
nice looking bird though

kinda like baseball records you could put an '*' on it as a job well done considering

[John Chardine]

I don't see the loss of detail at all. This is a super portrait in my opinion. Sometimes fuzzy-edged feathers can give the impression of softness.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Jeff, Randy, John,

Your comments are much appreciated.

Randy, the dof is so thin (dof calc says about a third of an inch) that anything much off the plane of the eye is oof. Of the shots I took, only the fairly straight profiles got enough in focus for my taste. Comb, eye and central feathers are all tack sharp, though (jpeg compression even picks up some moire on the breast). Unfortunately, the pucker on the chin seems to poke out a bit too much.

All in all, probably should have taken the time to take the tc off... might have been able to move to min focus range with this particular peafowl (with a dof of not quite an inch at f/8)...

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Brendan Dozier]

What a great looking bird, and love the rich color and detail on this portrait. The dark green BG works so well here. I did not notice it until I saw Randy's post, but I understand what he is referring to about the fine feather detail. Still a very strong image with good visual impact.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Brendan,

Thanks much for your comment. Looking at the OP I see what you and Randy are getting at. I appear to be losing the detail to the reduced size jpeg... From the lower left corner (still reduced 25%):



DOF is apparent as the feathers curve around but I'm pretty happy with the detail on the feathers more planar with the eye (left to center of this image). It's amusing to me that I didn't have this problem (reduced resolution impact on fine feather detail) when cropping more so the post was closer to actual pixel dimensions. Sigh.

Any suggestions on reducing size for posting and still retaining feather detail?

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Randy Rimland]

Brendan,

Thanks much for your comment. Looking at the OP I see what you and Randy are getting at. I appear to be losing the detail to the reduced size jpeg... From the lower left corner (still reduced 25%):



DOF is apparent as the feathers curve around but I'm pretty happy with the detail on the feathers more planar with the eye (left to center of this image). It's amusing to me that I didn't have this problem (reduced resolution impact on fine feather detail) when cropping more so the post was closer to actual pixel dimensions. Sigh.

Any suggestions on reducing size for posting and still retaining feather detail?

Cheers,

-Michael-

i only saw it because i recently upgraded to a dell u2711 lcd (2550x1440) that shows me detail I never saw before.

I create 80% jpgs-s in lr3, upload to smugmug and then post the XL version. A better approach is to create a jpg w/ a long side of 1024, upload to SM or wherever and then post the Original. Some hosting and some posting sites will auto resize and that's where the IQ really takes a hit. I am still so new here I don't know what the limits are and if they auto resize if you go over the limit.