-= 7D2 owners unite! Discuss and post photos!

a little linemen love

Itsed65 wrote in post #18175199

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/MUAu​N5
Hawk in Tree #37 by lennycarl08, on Flickr

Super Lenny

Archibald wrote in post #18175299
A stunning result, and as you say, shows the capabilities of the 7D2 - but I think it also shows a lot about your editing abilities. This does not look like simple editing. Would you care to give some details on the processing?

Also don't discount the 500 f4 II being a factor

Incoming! Australian Native Bee in search of nectar.

Cheers

Dennis

Archibald wrote in post #18175299
A stunning result, and as you say, shows the capabilities of the 7D2 - but I think it also shows a lot about your editing abilities. This does not look like simple editing. Would you care to give some details on the processing?

Thanks. I still think I'm a beginner at processing, but I guess I'm maybe intermediate. As Bianchi said, the credit for the sharpness goes to the 500 F4 II, but the credit or the croppability can be shared with the 7D II with those packed pixels on the sensor.

I do 90 pct in Lightroom, and 10 pct in Photoshop. In this case, I start in Lightroom, and did the basic crop, lowered the highlights, and raised the shadows, and raised the overall exposure. I used the Vibrance to raise the colours (50 this time, which is way more than my usual) and I never use the Saturation slider...Vibrance does better and more subtle job in my experience. Added a bit of Clarity. I used the heal spot tool to replace a bit of branch in the lower right hand side with feathers. I also lightened up the birds eye a wee bit, with noise reduction to keep it looking smooth (I do this with most of my bird pics). Then, off to Photoshop to remove that pesky branch sticking up from his left. I use the stamp tool to separate the branch from the body with appropriate background, and either content-aware fill or patch tool to replace the branch with natural looking background. Then, I used the magic wand to select everything but the bird, and ran noise reduction on the background. Then back to Lightroom to finish it: I replaced the darker parts of background with lighter sections using the spot healing tool (Photoshop is probably better at this, but I only decided later to do it) and brushed on the whole background with a combination of low clarity, high noise reduction, and low sharpness...to smooth out any artifacts. I finished with sharpening of about 60 (my usual is 40-50 but this is a big crop and needs a bit more), and a very small amount of vignette (I do it til noticeable, then back down...I prefer to not appear as if I did it).

This was more than my usual. I like to take clean shots to start with and well lit, avoiding most of this. My usual touching up is less than 5 minutes. This took about 15.

I learned much of this from an ebook from a bird photographer from Canada called Glenn Bartley. Very good book for bird photo processing...and he's a professional and uses mainly the 7D II. You can find him on YouTube and on his personal website. Highly recommended books and tutorials...great video blogs on YouTube too.

Hope this is helpful.
SD

I think its great to see someone excited about getting the sharpness their looking for,.. Life is a dance,..we learn as we go

Just a little bit of serenity

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Sdentrem wrote in post #18175449
Thanks. I still think I'm a beginner at processing, but I guess I'm maybe intermediate. As Bianchi said, the credit for the sharpness goes to the 500 F4 II, but the credit or the croppability can be shared with the 7D II with those packed pixels on the sensor.

I do 90 pct in Lightroom, and 10 pct in Photoshop. In this case, I start in Lightroom, and did the basic crop, lowered the highlights, and raised the shadows, and raised the overall exposure. I used the Vibrance to raise the colours (50 this time, which is way more than my usual) and I never use the Saturation slider...Vibrance does better and more subtle job in my experience. Added a bit of Clarity. I used the heal spot tool to replace a bit of branch in the lower right hand side with feathers. I also lightened up the birds eye a wee bit, with noise reduction to keep it looking smooth (I do this with most of my bird pics). Then, off to Photoshop to remove that pesky branch sticking up from his left. I use the stamp tool to separate the branch from the body with appropriate background, and either content-aware fill or patch tool to replace the branch with natural looking background. Then, I used the magic wand to select everything but the bird, and ran noise reduction on the background. Then back to Lightroom to finish it: I replaced the darker parts of background with lighter sections using the spot healing tool (Photoshop is probably better at this, but I only decided later to do it) and brushed on the whole background with a combination of low clarity, high noise reduction, and low sharpness...to smooth out any artifacts. I finished with sharpening of about 60 (my usual is 40-50 but this is a big crop and needs a bit more), and a very small amount of vignette (I do it til noticeable, then back down...I prefer to not appear as if I did it).

This was more than my usual. I like to take clean shots to start with and well lit, avoiding most of this. My usual touching up is less than 5 minutes. This took about 15.

I learned much of this from an ebook from a bird photographer from Canada called Glenn Bartley. Very good book for bird photo processing...and he's a professional and uses mainly the 7D II. You can find him on YouTube and on his personal website. Highly recommended books and tutorials...great video blogs on YouTube too.

Hope this is helpful.
SD

Wow, thanks for the detailed explanation. It is a lesson in processing this kind of shot. Many of us bird photographers have reach issues and need to do serious cropping, and your explanation (and lots of practice) will help us get better results.

So the formula for success would appear to be the 7D2 croppability, the 500mm II, and the PP.

There are a couple of other ingredients - attaining critical focus, and absence of motion. Were you using a tripod?

Edit: Sorry, I see it was hand-held.

Pondrader wrote in post #18175491
I think its great to see someone excited about getting the sharpness their looking for,.. Life is a dance,..we learn as we go

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forum: Canon Digital Cameras

Love this picture.

Mike

Archibald wrote in post #18175598
Wow, thanks for the detailed explanation. It is a lesson in processing this kind of shot. Many of us bird photographers have reach issues and need to do serious cropping, and your explanation (and lots of practice) will help us get better results.

So the formula for success would appear to be the 7D2 croppability, the 500mm II, and the PP.

There are a couple of other ingredients - attaining critical focus, and absence of motion. Were you using a tripod?

+++

I thought it was a given that cropping was pretty much something done for most birders, I crop most images except when I've got really close, lightroom 99%, use very little noise reduction. I personally think in many cases its all about light, I cant afford a canon 500 so have to make do with the Tamron and Im still amazed at the quality I get for the price and have sold a number of my bird photos taken with it, I think the Tamron is heavy and cant imagine carting a 500 around, but then I shoot nearly all my wildlife free hand

Curt Richmond in his S2B Pitts doing the Texas smoke dance

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OK Back to the Birds,..... lol