Chasco-cinzento

Ria de Alvor, Algarve.

Canon 1D Mk III 100-400mm L IS + 1.4TCII
1/1000s f/8.0 at 560mm ISO 400
Hand-held (no tripod).

Colin

Excellent photo of this beautiful bird.
Hand-held


Pedro

Nice picture from an unusual angle. Is it a male?

1 abraço,
Gonçalo

Hi Colin

Incredible detail!!

Could you give some hint to improve the detail using JPEG at 6.1Mp? (I would like to use RAW but I don´t have a clue how to work that format...)

Thanks!

Thanks for the kind comments Pedro, Gonçalo and Miguel.

Gonçalo, this shot (the one posted above) was taken in early October and appears to show normal adult male autumn plumage.

The following shot was taken in late September and I believe is of a 1st winter female of the subspecies leucorhoa (pale supercillium mostly behind the eye and rufous underparts extending back to the undertail coverts):




Miguel, I have looked at your recently posted shots of Goldfinch and Cattle Egret and think that both have some exposure problems; in the Goldfinch shot the shadows are too dark and the highlights too light, and in the Cattle Egret the whites are overexposed and "blown". There is also a problem with depth of field which is too shallow (shooting with the lens at maximum aperture?) resulting in the yellow wing-bar of the Goldfinch being in focus but the head and bill not, and with the egret the vole is in focus but the bird itself is not. I would normally use an aperture of f/7.1 or f/8.0 even for small birds to aquire a reasonable depth of field.

I am not familiar with the Nikon D70 so cannot give precise advice on camera settings. But, I would strongly advise you to shoot in RAW and learn how to use appropriate software to convert to TIFFs and JPEGs. Your shots seem to me to suffer from too much in-camera processing in JPEG mode (sharpness, contrast, colour saturation, etc) which is irreversible. With RAW (although it takes more time) at least you have a lossless format with maximum digital information (which you need on a 6 Mp camera) which you can always go back to and re-work if necesary. With JPEG, every time you make any adjustment and save the file there is a loss of image quality due to the compression factor. Using RAW files plus the camera software (Nikon View or Nikon Capture?) or a third party program (I use Photoshop Elements on an Apple iMac) you could make huge imrovements to highlights, shadows, contrast, colour. etc. in your shots.

Also, although your files are a good size in terms of dimensions (800 pixels max dimension) they are small in terms of KB; your Goldfinch is approximately 150 KB which is half the size of my original Wheatear in this thread, and your Cattle Egret is only 85 KB. Maybe you are using the "Save for Web" option in your software? - avoid it like the plague, it compresses the file too much and loses image quality. I always save at maximum image quality with the "Save as" option.

Another sequence of general rules which a lot of people do not follow is (and it varies depending on processing software):

1. Crop RAW file and convert to 8 or 16 bit TIFF
2. Adjust shadows, highlights, colour, etc.
3. Reduce "noise" (either with camera software or a "plug-in" such as Neat Image)
4. Sharpen using "Unsharp Mask" (values 130 - 0.8 - 0.0)
5. Resize image (800 pixels max dimension)
6. Sharpen again after re-sizing (VERY important)
7. Save as a JPEG at maximum quality (giving a file size of 200-500KB depending on content and detail).

This is variable, and there are more than one ways of achieving the same end product, but any sharpening should be kept to the very end of processing.

I would advise shooting some static colourful subjects (not necessarily birds) with different camera settings (aperture, ISO, etc) but in RAW and having a "play around" with the results. It is a very steep learning curve but well worth the effort.

PM me if you want any further help.

Um abraço,

Colin

Hi Colin!

Thank you very much for so detailed "hints"!!

I think I have found part of the compressing problem. The software I've beeing using latelly (my PC "burned" and I'm using a very poor one) compresses by default when savig. Anyway, before uploding the files are about 280kb for the Goldfinch and 500Kb for the Egret. Could it be the site we are using for uplodes?

In the past, I have used the Nikon Capture for every fotos, including some experiences in RAW but I felt the features for managing the image were poor, specially the sharpening tool (creates too many artifacts or have a too strong efect on the image).

I have the C1 PRO but I cant figure it out...

I'm going to study a litle more and try to follow the sequence of rules.

Wile waiting for the new equipement (new PC), I will have to put here some of the "old fotos" without the new improvements.

Once again, thanks!!!

Um abraço,

Miguel.

1. Crop RAW file and convert to 8 or 16 bit TIFF
2. Adjust shadows, highlights, colour, etc.
3. Reduce "noise" (either with camera software or a "plug-in" such as Neat Image)
4. Sharpen using "Unsharp Mask" (values 130 - 0.8 - 0.0)
5. Resize image (800 pixels max dimension)
6. Sharpen again after re-sizing (VERY important)
7. Save as a JPEG at maximum quality (giving a file size of 200-500KB depending on content and detail).

Hi Colin!
Nyce tips!
By the way I agree with Miguel, y've tried work with RAW files without sucess! Now I take pictures in JPEG Large file, quality priority, Fine mode and, after compared the results I think that there is no big diference. Could I be Wrong???
How can I "reduce" noise in Photoshop? Any ideias?
Thanks

Hi,

Differences Raw and Jpeg:

www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/photo_basics/raw_vs_jpg.shtml

Best regards / Abraço,
Pedro

joseloureiro escreveu:

Hi Colin!
Nyce tips!
By the way I agree with Miguel, y've tried work with RAW files without sucess! Now I take pictures in JPEG Large file, quality priority, Fine mode and, after compared the results I think that there is no big diference. Could I be Wrong???
How can I "reduce" noise in Photoshop? Any ideias?
Thanks

Hi Jose,

The link provided by Pedro above is a good synopsis of the difference between RAW and JPEG (there is much info on the web if you "Google" it). Believe me, it took me some time to be converted to RAW from Large (fine) JPEG but now that is all I shoot. Unprocessed RAW files can look a bit "flat" compared to out of the camera JPEGS, but they contain so much more data which allows more possibilities in post processing. Also, you cannot overwrite a RAW file so you always have the original "digital negative" to go back and work on again as you aquire new processing software and your processing skills improve. One BIG drawback of course is that RAW files are huge so you need to use high capacity cards (but these are becoming very cheap) and they occupy a lot of space on your hard-drive; you have to be very strict with yourself and "trash" a lot of what you shoot. It is not uncommon for me to shoot 500 shots in a few hours but after downloading them only keeping maybe 10 to 15.

Reducing noise in Photoshop is fairly easy (I only use Photoshop Elements, not the full PS CS3 version, but I guess the process must be similar) - On the top line menu options choose "Filter" > "Noise" > "Reduce Noise" which then gives you options to reduce both Luminescence and Chrominance noise as well as removing JPEG Artifacts. There are better programs for reducing noise, two of the most common being "Neat Image" and "Noise Ninja" (Google them) which work as stand-alone tools or as "plug-ins" for Photoshop. They are relatively cheap to buy as downloads.

It is all very complex to begin with but when the actions become "second nature" you find you can process a shot in less than a minute. You can (and many do) end up spending as much time in front of your computer as you do taking photographs but I always think it is better to have a "handful" of excellent shots at the end of the day then a hundred mediocre ones. Another big advantage of shooting in RAW is that if you make prints of A4 size or larger the image quality is far superior to an image originally shot as JPEG.

Best wishes,

Colin

Hi.
As I found that the subject is interesting and was runing away a little from this post (gallery) I created one post for debate of the subject

https://aves.forumeiros.com/fotografia-e-optica-f4/tratamento-digital-de-fotografias-t715.htm

1 Abraço
Loureiro

Colin,

Thanks again for sharing your knowlege! I'm learning by the day.

Pedro,

thanks for the link. I'm going to learn a lot more...

Miguel.