Show your Bird Portraits

scyrene said:
Jack Douglas said:
scyrene said:
An unusually confiding Mediterranean gull. 5Ds, 500+1.4: 700mm, f/5.6, 1/320, ISO 3200 (handheld).


Lovely shot. Since ISO 3200, why not do a little noise reduction on the background. I'm sure it would add just a little extra.

Jack

LOL, thanks. I actually worked on this image pretty hard. I split it into two, masking off the foreground (bird) and applying heavy colour denoise to the background, and then re-merging in Affinity. I also applied some luminance denoise, and masked sharpening in Lightroom. Originally, I was going to do what I normally would now, with an image like this: heavy denoise (chrominance and luminance) on the background, then Gaussian blur, then add in some random grain. But it didn't work, and I preferred the less processed approach.

However even so, in general I much prefer even natural noise to noise reduction, which either posterises or leaves weird wormy artifacts on areas of smooth tone like the background here. Also, moderate noise means that resizing by websites like Flickr and Twitter doesn't cause such ugly jpeg compression artifacts on smooth tones as it does without.

Ultimately it's a matter of taste. But this is ISO 3200, there's gonna be noise. Each to their own.

Don't mind me. I'm not saying the noise is problematic. That's more than I ever do. I'd be curious to see what Scott has up his sleave.

Jack
 
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privatebydesign said:
scyrene said:
Jack Douglas said:
scyrene said:
An unusually confiding Mediterranean gull. 5Ds, 500+1.4: 700mm, f/5.6, 1/320, ISO 3200 (handheld).


Lovely shot. Since ISO 3200, why not do a little noise reduction on the background. I'm sure it would add just a little extra.

Jack

LOL, thanks. I actually worked on this image pretty hard. I split it into two, masking off the foreground (bird) and applying heavy colour denoise to the background, and then re-merging in Affinity. I also applied some luminance denoise, and masked sharpening in Lightroom. Originally, I was going to do what I normally would now, with an image like this: heavy denoise (chrominance and luminance) on the background, then Gaussian blur, then add in some random grain. But it didn't work, and I preferred the less processed approach.

However even so, in general I much prefer even natural noise to noise reduction, which either posterises or leaves weird wormy artifacts on areas of smooth tone like the background here. Also, moderate noise means that resizing by websites like Flickr and Twitter doesn't cause such ugly jpeg compression artifacts on smooth tones as it does without.

Ultimately it's a matter of taste. But this is ISO 3200, there's gonna be noise. Each to their own.

Would you mind posting an uncrossed version? The noise at 3200 seems to be inconsistent with anything but a pretty heavy crop.

Sure, here you go. It is indeed a fairly heavy crop. I wanted a close portrait. I originally cropped it wider but preferred the tighter version. (This is of course resized).
 

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My first snowy of the year.
They were all (saw seven) sitting on poles as it wasn't feeding time, but the truck was running funny so I left. Truck quit 20 miles north of the Mackinaw bridge, got towed 70 miles to Gaylord where a mechanic was waiting, that was not cheep cheep cheep as this was on a Sunday. Ended up being a fuel filter issue on the diesel.
Anyway, I tried to get this one back-lit.
 

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Jack Douglas said:
Don't mind me. I'm not saying the noise is problematic. That's more than I ever do. I'd be curious to see what Scott has up his sleave.

Jack

Heh, it's fine. I know some would balk at it. However, as time goes on, the more I am at peace with noise and less satisfied with noise reduction. A smooth grain across the image (or at least areas of smooth tone) is less ugly to my eyes than the alternatives, but as I say, it's entirely subjective :)
 
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d4mike said:
My first snowy of the year.
They were all (saw seven) sitting on poles as it wasn't feeding time, but the truck was running funny so I left. Truck quit 20 miles north of the Mackinaw bridge, got towed 70 miles to Gaylord where a mechanic was waiting, that was not cheep cheep cheep as this was on a Sunday. Ended up being a fuel filter issue on the diesel.
Anyway, I tried to get this one back-lit.

What a fantastic bird to see! And (to me) unusual to see it against a blue sky. Well done :)
 
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d4mike said:
My first snowy of the year.
They were all (saw seven) sitting on poles as it wasn't feeding time, but the truck was running funny so I left. Truck quit 20 miles north of the Mackinaw bridge, got towed 70 miles to Gaylord where a mechanic was waiting, that was not cheep cheep cheep as this was on a Sunday. Ended up being a fuel filter issue on the diesel.
Anyway, I tried to get this one back-lit.
This is a gorgeous photo! Love the backlit white feathers against the nice blue sky.
Cheers,
Eric
 
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d4mike said:
My first snowy of the year.
They were all (saw seven) sitting on poles as it wasn't feeding time, but the truck was running funny so I left. Truck quit 20 miles north of the Mackinaw bridge, got towed 70 miles to Gaylord where a mechanic was waiting, that was not cheep cheep cheep as this was on a Sunday. Ended up being a fuel filter issue on the diesel.
Anyway, I tried to get this one back-lit.

Brilliant! So well framed against the sun and the shadow is well controlled
 
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