Does this work?

Got a lot of shots of this female hummer, all in front of the shepherd's hook post. Tried cloning it out but my pp skills are not up to the task. So, tried a heavy crop/profile shot-doesn't look too bad to my eyes, but noise is definitely a factor. Lesser of 2 evils?

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Looks good, nice shot

Honest answer, Rog? Your crop is a bit too close. Saying that, the noise here could be easily eliminated or at least reduced with a little pp work which would improve the shot a lot. The BG is fine but would look much better with NR applied or surface blurred.

No EXIF. Shot with the 7D? I habitually overexpose my shots to reduce the chance of noise. I've set my camera to all manual with spot metering and rarely do I blow any highlights.

Works big time for me Rog, nice one.

2n10 wrote in post #15990412
Looks good, nice shot

Thanks 2n10

2slo wrote in post #15991118
Honest answer, Rog? Your crop is a bit too close. Saying that, the noise here could be easily eliminated or at least reduced with a little pp work which would improve the shot a lot. The BG is fine but would look much better with NR applied or surface blurred.

When you say too close, do you want more bird or more border? I applied NR ACR, the only process that seems to work for me-78 value in masking and 17 in luminance. Left the other at the default 25. I can never see any change in the NR in the filter panel. Is there another application in Elements I'm not aware of?

Waldemar Sikorski wrote in post #15991154
No EXIF. Shot with the 7D? I habitually overexpose my shots to reduce the chance of noise. I've set my camera to all manual with spot metering and rarely do I blow any highlights.

Not sure why EXIF isn't there-didn't knowingly do anything. Shot w/ 7D, 1/320ss, 7.1 aperature(for DOF,they seem to move around a lot and I'm kinda slow) 1600 ISO at 300mm. Did have camera on Eval. Meter., from earlier inside shoot. Changed it. Overexposure is a bit of a luxury-cloudy day and heavily shaded backyard. 20-20 hindsight-maybe open up a bit and decrease ISO.

Lester Wareham wrote in post #15991699
Works big time for me Rog, nice one.

Ah, a dissident! lol Thank you, Lester.

Rog,
I like the sharpness and colors but the crop is different than I'm used to.
I'm not sure if its good or bad or neither.

I would however like to see more bird personally.

jhayesvw wrote in post #15992104
Rog,
I like the sharpness and colors but the crop is different than I'm used to.
I'm not sure if its good or bad or neither.

I would however like to see more bird personally.

Rog, so would I. Because of the large crop, the good detail is lost. The sharpening artifacts and noise lessen the quality.

OK, believe the nays won out-I was a little skeptical myself. Here is the original file reworked w/ more aggressive NR (and less aggressive crop)

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That's better

2slo wrote in post #15992453
That's better

Thanks. But it's virtually identical to a shot I posted earlier-the reason for the crop/profile test. Live and learn. Again, thank you for taking an interest.

Much better, nice job.

I like the original showing the feeder pole. I get enough Hummingbird images that if it were mine I would have deleted it but it doesn't hurt to experiment. What f-stop was this taken at?

Duane N wrote in post #15993011
I like the original showing the feeder pole. I get enough Hummingbird images that if it were mine I would have deleted it but it doesn't hurt to experiment. What f-stop was this taken at?

7.1 My reasoning is for a slightly greater dof-they move around so much and quicker than I can react. As mentioned in another reply, 20-20 hindsight maybe shuld have opened up a bit and decreased ISO and hope for a shot in focus. Think I'm going to close off a couple of ports, too, and start using low power flash-had decent results w/ that last yr.

ardeekay wrote in post #15992402
OK, believe the nays won out-I was a little skeptical myself. Here is the original file reworked w/ more aggressive NR (and less aggressive crop)

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Rog you can do too much NR such that you lose detail where it counts and that is on the hummer. You have to do selective NR to minimize loss of detail on the hummer. Because of the bg (pole) I would have deleted the image. I agree with Duane. Most of the time in great light, my f-stop is f6.3 to f8. Nothing wrong with your f-stop.