Some bird shots from work...

[DaveLC2]

It was a little trickey trying to capture some bird shots while working at the same time but here are a few. Enjoy

How do you all get your pictures to look SO good for 640x480? Everytime I try they look pixelated. Must be something I am doing wrong.











Dave

[Sushigaijin]

hey those are great! The first few are underexposed, but the detail is there...great candidates for a photoshoping (and they do clean up nicely, except for the noise.)

I wish I had time to shoot at work, but I'm running from the moment I walk in the door!!

[DaveLC2]

hey those are great! The first few are underexposed, but the detail is there...great candidates for a photoshoping (and they do clean up nicely, except for the noise.)

I wish I had time to shoot at work, but I'm running from the moment I walk in the door!!

I need to have my camera cleaned by the pro's. I NEVER used to have noise at ISO 400 before I tried to give my camera a clean. I guess it takes 4 weeks to send my camera out for a clean and our trip to New Zealand is in a little over 2 weeks. The guys at the shop told me they would to to help me. Now I just have to get down there.

Dave

[paulnj]

Nice scrub jay images !!!!!

[Loupey]

What an awesome looking bird! Wish we had those here.

Do you shoot RAW? It might not be the resizing but in how you PP the original images. My 640x427 images that I post here look very close to the full size one's. If you post a straight RAW image here, we can take a look at it and give it a PP shot. The last one would be a good candidate.

[Sushigaijin]

The second one is great too...i'm chomping at the photoshop bit to edit that one...

It could be your photohosting that causes the pixelation, is it present in your shots before you upload them, or only once they are online? Much better to resize in photoshop than to allow the photo host to resize it.

[DaveLC2]

What an awesome looking bird! Wish we had those here.

Do you shoot RAW? It might not be the resizing but in how you PP the original images. My 640x427 images that I post here look very close to the full size one's. If you post a straight RAW image here, we can take a look at it and give it a PP shot. The last one would be a good candidate.

Cool I appreciate it Loupey and Sushigaijin. I don't shoot RAW but I am thinking that I should. I am having a senior moment trying to figure out what PP stands for again You two both have permission to play them. I am at work currently but I will upload the full size uncropped versions to my gallery in a while.

Dave

[DaveLC2]

Okay I have uploaded them with some more to my gallery. I thought I had some Coyote pics from the other night but they are on my HD at home. They turned out really bad. I just about died when I pulled into this parking lot and saw 6 yes 6 coyotes standing in the middle of a parking lot just chillin I grabbed my camera and the settings were all wrong and I had the wrong lens on. It was amazing that they waited for me to swap a lens out but then they started to take off before I could dial in my settings. I will post them later on when I get home from work.

Dave

[Sushigaijin]

Dave: having the full version really illuminates a few things. I didn't realize they were such heavy crops. Most of the shots you see posted on this forum are resized from a MUCH larger frame than the crops you've presented here - therefore they are less pixelated. I'm pretty sure this is why you are struggling with the quality of this set. In any case, they are still great shots and have tons of detail hiding in the shadows. Here's one that I played with for 10 minutes.



If I wasn't pressed for time, I'd get rid of the purple fringing in the background and perhaps adjust the shadows on his belly - there is a lot of noise hiding there that doesn't sit well with me. I'll really have a go at it tomorrow-ish.

Edit: Replaced picture with new one, fixed belly shadow.

[DaveLC2]

Dave: having the full version really illuminates a few things. I didn't realize they were such heavy crops. Most of the shots you see posted on this forum are resized from a MUCH larger frame than the crops you've presented here - therefore they are less pixelated. I'm pretty sure this is why you are struggling with the quality of this set. In any case, they are still great shots and have tons of detail hiding in the shadows. Here's one that I played with for 10 minutes.



If I wasn't pressed for time, I'd get rid of the purple fringing in the background and perhaps adjust the shadows on his belly - there is a lot of noise hiding there that doesn't sit well with me. I'll really have a go at it tomorrow-ish.

Edit: Replaced picture with new one, fixed belly shadow.

Wow that turned out great! Since I've been into shooting digital, I've always tried to leave things as natural as possible. I want to get some experience using photoshop to clean up stuff. I never usually crop that heavy. I only did it so I could get it under the limits on here for uploading. When I tried to upload there was a problem so I just used a host instead. Thanks for playing around with that photo.

Dave

[Sushigaijin]

I'm glad you like it!

There is some posterization in the belly area - the noise in the shadows is just too much to really find a lot of detail and it looks pretty grim without some noise reduction, which made the belly into kind of a grey smear. I think in a larger crop at common print sizes it would not be a problem. Another possibility is to darken the belly a little more, to make it less apparent. That might be the best way to go.

The background needed a good jolt of noise reduction too, I would suggest exposing a little brighter on ISO400 shots - they will be much cleaner with a better exposure. Noise dwells in shadows, and a perfectly exposed shot will ALWAYS have less noise than an underexposed shot at the same ISO. Otherwise, they do all contain a ton of detail and will probably make nice prints once they have been processed. Especially with digital, post processing is an important part of the process. These days it's just easier and cheaper than it used to be.