Can I get a little C&C

I want to get better at this birding thing but I think I am missing something ... either in a setting or how I am taking the pics ...
It seems when I take these pictures there is a noise in them ... and it is especially noticeable when I crop or make them larger ... can anyone help me figure out what this is and what I am doing wrong??

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …teve_douglass/8​752608042/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …teve_douglass/8​751486853/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …teve_douglass/8​751487229/

I don't have time to look at exif, but I'd suggest to zoom in closer, have the bird just a bit off center with space to the side it's head is pointing. 1 is kind of fun since the bird is all twisted, 2 seems over exposed on the ground and too much space around, 3 cuts off both birds at the tail, could have been nice with just the bird on the right. Just my 2ct, I'm not into animal photography (taking it, looking it I like) but that's what I'd try to do.

phantelope wrote in post #15945366
I don't have time to look at exif, but I'd suggest to zoom in closer, have the bird just a bit off center with space to the side it's head is pointing. 1 is kind of fun since the bird is all twisted, 2 seems over exposed on the ground and too much space around, 3 cuts off both birds at the tail, could have been nice with just the bird on the right. Just my 2ct, I'm not into animal photography (taking it, looking it I like) but that's what I'd try to do.

Thank you!! that helps some!!

I think leveling the camera at the eye level of your avian subjects might help. In 1 and 2, your perspective is above the eye level of your subjects. In 3, you are almost at the eye level of the bird on the right; had you had a higher magnification lens, I feel that you could focus framing on only one of the two birds and get a pretty decent shot.

As for PP, in 3, it looks like you're not applying Masking after you've sharpened your image. Correct me if I am wrong; I do realize that working with a file that is ISO 6400 is quite troublesome. I do think you could've gotten away with a shutter speed of 1/1000 instead of 1/2000.

VCY wrote in post #15945428
I think leveling the camera at the eye level of your avian subjects might help. In 1 and 2, your perspective is above the eye level of your subjects. In 3, you are almost at the eye level of the bird on the right; had you had a higher magnification lens, I feel that you could focus framing on only one of the two birds and get a pretty decent shot.

As for PP, in 3, it looks like you're not applying Masking after you've sharpened your image. Correct me if I am wrong; I do realize that working with a file that is ISO 6400 is quite troublesome. I do think you could've gotten away with a shutter speed of 1/1000 instead of 1/2000.

Cool thanks for the advice ... I will try and apply these to the next practice session ... I haven't touched these pictures in LR yet ... I left them just as they came off the camera ... I will try to get more on there level!! I will play with the setting some more ... thanks again!

Steve

I agree,
I had a 60d and loved it,
I never should have sold it.

I would drop your shutter speed to 1/640-1/1250th
raise your aperture to f7.1
drop the iso to 1600 and lower and your shots will have less noise and be sharp.

Also, be sure to use manual focus point selection and use the center point mostly til you get things dialed.

I apologize if this was all stuff you already knew.

Great advice so far. I can't read the exif data so I have no idea what your settings were with these images but the one thing I noticed was the lack of sunlight when you took these. I try to take advantage of the light available as much as possible...it allows me to shoot at a lower ISO, higher shutter speed and increased depth of field. Getting as close as possible and cropping less will reduce the noise you'll have to deal with in post processing but it's something everyone deals with in some form.

I looked at your exif data on Flickr. I'm learning bird photography as well with my 60D, but I have terrible noise with high ISO's like you are using. I set my ISO for 800 or less for best results. Plus I sharpen just the subject in post processing, so as not to sharpen the noise. Good light is a must for best results. Keep trying, that's what I'm doing!

Duane N wrote in post #15945896
Great advice so far. I can't read the exif data so I have no idea what your settings were with these images but the one thing I noticed was the lack of sunlight when you took these. I try to take advantage of the light available as much as possible...it allows me to shoot at a lower ISO, higher shutter speed and increased depth of field. Getting as close as possible and cropping less will reduce the noise you'll have to deal with in post processing but it's something everyone deals with in some form.

So basically when I cant "make" the sunshine then I can accept a bit more PP work to compensate? (When I need to increase my ISO) ... I have learned to shoot with a higher shutter speed has helped but as with everything there is a happy medium someplace lol ... thank you so much for taking the time to explain and your suggestions!!

Steve

SJC from VT wrote in post #15945953
I looked at your exif data on Flickr. I'm learning bird photography as well with my 60D, but I have terrible noise with high ISO's like you are using. I set my ISO for 800 or less for best results. Plus I sharpen just the subject in post processing, so as not to sharpen the noise. Good light is a must for best results. Keep trying, that's what I'm doing!

What are you using to sharpen just the subject??? I just have LR ... I was wondering about just sharpening what I wanted to but seems when I do this that everything gets adjusted across the board .... granted I may need to play with LR more as I have not learned even a fraction of what it can do ...
Thank you for your suggestions and tips!

Steve

steve_douglass wrote in post #15946154
What are you using to sharpen just the subject??? I just have LR ... I was wondering about just sharpening what I wanted to but seems when I do this that everything gets adjusted across the board .... granted I may need to play with LR more as I have not learned even a fraction of what it can do ...
Thank you for your suggestions and tips!

Steve

Seems like everyone but me uses LR. I use Photoshop Elements 9 with the Raw converter for the first few steps. It's pretty reasonable, and you can do a lot with it. Not sure how, or if you can do selective sharpening with LR.

SJC from VT wrote in post #15946273
Seems like everyone but me uses LR. I use Photoshop Elements 9 with the Raw converter for the first few steps. It's pretty reasonable, and you can do a lot with it. Not sure how, or if you can do selective sharpening with LR.

I think I am going to get Elements ... seems there is things in there that I can't do in LR ... and visa versa ... maybe not lol .. either way not a big deal ...

Thanks again!

Steve

I'm a under-achieving hobbyist but have been around this block a few times and picked up on some things. First, your gear is excellant and will give you crack shots when everything falls together. I've used that 70-200+1.4TC a lot and it'll work great when it's in the right situations.
I use Elements and as SJC said, the work you can do in the raw converter is, for me, the backbone of my pp. But...I also don't understand 1/10th of what that program is capable of. Never used LR, but I understood it's forte was its organizational features. May be wrong about that.
Guessing these shots were in your yard-set up there and experiment. Might suggest ss 1/800, aperature 6.3 or 7.1 and ISO on automatic. What's that giving you? Over/under exposed, high or low iso numbers, histogram left or right? Adjust from there and if you adjust the wrong way, you'll find out quick and in the process start figuring this thing out. Oh, assume you are aware the max. aperature of a lens is less w/ a TC connected. In a shady location, this can be a biggie.
Hope this is of some help-good luck!

I think you can improve your bird photography quite a bit without relying on post processing. Considering the images that you posted, at this point it really isn't about what you do in post.

I think it would help you greatly if you took more control of your shoots. By that I mean, instead of letting the existing conditions dictate how to shoot the birds, you can set things up in such a way as to gain more control of the elements in your photos:

- Get closer to the birds, or shoot with a longer lens. If you don't believe you can get much closer, I challenge you to just give it a try. Set up a blind that will completely conceal you. If you do, then you will be very surprised at how much you can close the distance and put more pixels on the birds. Even if all you have is a 70-200, you will still be able to get much, much closer than you are now.

- Choose what your background is. Don't just settle for whatever happens to be behind the birds - determine what will be behind them. Set your feeder up so that you can shoot in line with some nice green foliage. Or, lacking that, line the feeder up where there is a lot of open space behind it, so that background elements will be more effectively blurred out. If the birds are in shade, then make sure the background is as dark as possible. It may help to buy several yards of cloth material of a natural-looking color, and hang it up 20 or 30 feet behind the feeders, to ensure that you get a "clean" background. No matter how you solve your background troubles, just make sure that you are choosing the background, and not just "stuck" with whatever happens to be there.

- Camera position with regards to the angle to the subject. As another person already suggested, seldom can good results be obtained when shooting down on a bird. Try to have the camera on a level with them. This will normally result in a much more pleasing perspective.

- Don't be afraid of slow shutter speeds. Slow shutter speeds can be great, because they will allow you to shoot at much lower ISO and also use smaller apertures, such as f8, which will result in sharper, better resolved feather detail. Be sure to use a good sturdy tripod, and work on technique so that you can keep the camera solid and still. This will take some time, but is very well worth the effort. If I were you, at this time I would not hesitate to use shutter speeds down to 1/100th of a second. Then, after some weeks/months of practice, you should be able to get consistently brilliant results at 1/40th of a second, even with a very long lens. I do not recommend having the ISO any higher than 400.

ardeekay wrote in post #15947631
I'm a under-achieving hobbyist but have been around this block a few times and picked up on some things. First, your gear is excellant and will give you crack shots when everything falls together. I've used that 70-200+1.4TC a lot and it'll work great when it's in the right situations.
I use Elements and as SJC said, the work you can do in the raw converter is, for me, the backbone of my pp. But...I also don't understand 1/10th of what that program is capable of. Never used LR, but I understood it's forte was its organizational features. May be wrong about that.
Guessing these shots were in your yard-set up there and experiment. Might suggest ss 1/800, aperature 6.3 or 7.1 and ISO on automatic. What's that giving you? Over/under exposed, high or low iso numbers, histogram left or right? Adjust from there and if you adjust the wrong way, you'll find out quick and in the process start figuring this thing out. Oh, assume you are aware the max. aperature of a lens is less w/ a TC connected. In a shady location, this can be a biggie.
Hope this is of some help-good luck!

Thanks for the reply ... this is encouraging ... I know its not an overnight thing to learn and all these tips and suggestions are great!! Elements I think will be in the near future but first I think I need to practice ... A LOT MORE ... good thing pictures are cheap =) ...

Tom Reichner wrote in post #15947705
I think you can improve your bird photography quite a bit without relying on post processing. Considering the images that you posted, at this point it really isn't about what you do in post.

I think it would help you greatly if you took more control of your shoots. By that I mean, instead of letting the existing conditions dictate how to shoot the birds, you can set things up in such a way as to gain more control of the elements in your photos:

- Get closer to the birds, or shoot with a longer lens. If you don't believe you can get much closer, I challenge you to just give it a try. Set up a blind that will completely conceal you. If you do, then you will be very surprised at how much you can close the distance and put more pixels on the birds. Even if all you have is a 70-200, you will still be able to get much, much closer than you are now.

- Choose what your background is. Don't just settle for whatever happens to be behind the birds - determine what will be behind them. Set your feeder up so that you can shoot in line with some nice green foliage. Or, lacking that, line the feeder up where there is a lot of open space behind it, so that background elements will be more effectively blurred out. If the birds are in shade, then make sure the background is as dark as possible. It may help to buy several yards of cloth material of a natural-looking color, and hang it up 20 or 30 feet behind the feeders, to ensure that you get a "clean" background. No matter how you solve your background troubles, just make sure that you are choosing the background, and not just "stuck" with whatever happens to be there.

- Camera position with regards to the angle to the subject. As another person already suggested, seldom can good results be obtained when shooting down on a bird. Try to have the camera on a level with them. This will normally result in a much more pleasing perspective.

- Don't be afraid of slow shutter speeds. Slow shutter speeds can be great, because they will allow you to shoot at much lower ISO and also use smaller apertures, such as f8, which will result in sharper, better resolved feather detail. Be sure to use a good sturdy tripod, and work on technique so that you can keep the camera solid and still. This will take some time, but is very well worth the effort. If I were you, at this time I would not hesitate to use shutter speeds down to 1/100th of a second. Then, after some weeks/months of practice, you should be able to get consistently brilliant results at 1/40th of a second, even with a very long lens. I do not recommend having the ISO any higher than 400.

Thank you for the suggestions ... I have already started to think about ways to change things in my yard and where I take pictures from ... I have only had this camera 10 days ... so I would consider my pictures very much practice lol ...

I played with walking around the yard tonight before the thunderstorm and surprisingly I think I got some pretty good shots ... Ill put up a couple of other pictures to see if I have improved with the suggestions you all have made!

Thanks again everyone .... Im eager to learn and as I said the "film" is cheap lol ... practice practice practice!!!

Steve