litte birds

dbaker1221

nothing exotic

BigAl

Very nice Dave! Are these with the new camera?

dbaker1221

BigAl wrote:

Very nice Dave! Are these with the new camera?

thanks ...yes d300 & bigma. 800iso...i did use some noise ninja on it.

Harryb

Good captures and at ISO 800.

Ric Grupe

Let's see them without the noise reduction, Dave. They look a little smudgy to me. The colors and exposure are very good.

Personally I think that NR software does more harm than good. Unless you just want to clean up a deep shadow...I would never use it on the whole frame.

BBiggs

Very nice! I like them both... ALOT

Giphsub

The d300 with the bigma? I am waiting for my bigma to arrive and then I'll be slingin the same gun!

Maestro

Cool captures in low light! Referring to Ric's comment, you can use the "quick selection tool" to outline the subject, in this case the birds, then right click and select "inverse." Now you can run your noise reduction software but it won't touch your main subjects, just the background and surrounding areas around your subject. In this way, you can retain sharpness in the feathers and the like as noise reduction software tends to soften and smooth the details too much in subjects with such fine details as feathers. I find though that this type of software does very well when photographing people.

I feel like I am rambling. Is this clear as mud?

Jack'll do

Very nice Dave. What was the approximate distance to the subjects that the Bigma allowed you to shoot from?

dbaker1221

Ric Grupe wrote:

Let's see them without the noise reduction, Dave. They look a little smudgy to me. The colors and exposure are very good.

Personally I think that NR software does more harm than good. Unless you just want to clean up a deep shadow...I would never use it on the whole frame.

I missed my exposuer on these shots Ric & had to lighten them in pp.

before noise reduction


& now that I'm looking at them , I may have loaded the one with out noise reduction.
anyway I think I lost the detail because I shot them so dark & had to bring them up alot. the day before my shots were too bright so I over comped for that.....Hey, I'm no Harry

2nd shot no niosse reduction

dbaker1221

Maestro wrote:

Cool captures in low light! Referring to Ric's comment, you can use the "quick selection tool" to outline the subject, in this case the birds, then right click and select "inverse." Now you can run your noise reduction software but it won't touch your main subjects, just the background and surrounding areas around your subject. In this way, you can retain sharpness in the feathers and the like as noise reduction software tends to soften and smooth the details too much in subjects with such fine details as feathers. I find though that this type of software does very well when photographing people.

I feel like I am rambling. Is this clear as mud?

thanks Stephen

dbaker1221

Jack'll do wrote:

Very nice Dave. What was the approximate distance to the subjects that the Bigma allowed you to shoot from?

well..........the feeder is set up behind my garage so I can shoot out the window of it. I was about 10-15 feet away.

Ric Grupe

Thanks, Dave.

I see now that what I thought was an NR problem was not. You didn't use much of it. Stephen's suggestion was right on the money as far as I'm concerned.

What I thought was too much NR was probably due to shallow depth of field and those little buggers ruffling their feathers. (they tend to do that ya know) Just below the neck on the second bird stands out the most. You most likely had your focus on his noggin.

kdog

That first one is beautiful, David.

I agree with Ric and Stephen that selecting blurring and sharpening are important skills to have. I like the article by Stephen Ting here:

http://rohirrim.smugmug.com/gallery/1212902/1

You can use this technique to apply other effects selectively as well.

Cheers,
-joel

dbaker1221

thanks everyone ....I got some good info out of this series

Maestro

Ric Grupe wrote:

Thanks, Dave.

I see now that what I thought was an NR problem was not. You didn't use much of it. Stephen's suggestion was right on the money as far as I'm concerned.

They are right on the money because YOU are the one that first pointed me in the direction of selective sharpening. Oh you mighty PP master. Seriously, I am just passing on what you taught me.