-= 70D owners unite! Post up pics and discuss!

Box of Tricks! Never heard of....googling now

Gabe might give me a pass on this one, C/C please. Thick skinned and here to learn:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …icineman4040/10​592052914/

Did you sharpen it in post?

MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #16413186
Gabe might give me a pass on this one, C/C please. Thick skinned and here to learn:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …icineman4040/10​592052914/
Yard Bird2 by MedicineMan4040, on Flickr

well, here are my thoughts.
Composition is pretty good, I also like the colors. Pretty good subject separation too considering the background. I like the pose of the bird too.

Unfortunately I have to say that the photo is oversharpened. Sharpening and noise reduction is a peculiar art. You want to reduce noise at certain areas that don't add detail to the picture such as the background, but keep important parts of the image sharp, but not oversharpened. In this case I would have gone a bit easier on the sharpening while reducing the noise in the background.
When I do that in post, I first do it moderately in Adobe ACR. I can't give you specific numbers since different pictures require different approaches in terms of sharpening and NR.
Then I continue the post processing in Photoshop CS6 using the "reduce noise" effect, which can reduce noise under a set threshold while sharpening detail where it matters. There are a few parameters that I'm able to control and I'm always trying to find the best balance. But of course just like most things in life it's also a matter of taste

BeerWolf wrote in post #16413139
I had to look it up. It depends on how far the closest subject is. If you have something 200 feet away using 50mm 2.8, the far limit is infinite. But if you have a close subject in focus, it will cause the background to go OOF.

Interesting - I didn't know that. Means the nifty fifty can be used in low light for landscape then.

Keyan yes, and thanks Gabe for the c/c.

You're welcome.

Yeah I was going to mirror Gabe's comments, it looks oversharpened. You can usually tell when you reach that point when contrast lines start to get an odd white fringing to them, and you'll start to see pattern noise creeping out of your out of focus areas.

Keyan, Gabe, while I have your attention critique the SOOC, I did crop:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …icineman4040/10​596763113/

Believe it or not, I like this one a lot more

Well yeah I believe you, why would you lie! Sad that I honestly don't which I like more, worse I can't even come close to identifying the bird.
There's go to be something you would improve?

p.s. tried the Canon 400 5.6 with Sigma 1.4 TC and it was horrid; or should say my ability to manually focus was horrid.

Much better. The 70D, by default, is already applying some NR and sharpening IN CAMERA for jpgs as it processes and saves them. I've actually found the default settings to be pretty good for most use.

MedicineMan4040 wrote in post #16414061
Well yeah I believe you, why would you lie! Sad that I honestly don't which I like more, worse I can't even come close to identifying the bird.
There's go to be something you would improve?

p.s. tried the Canon 400 5.6 with Sigma 1.4 TC and it was horrid; or should say my ability to manually focus was horrid.

Try focusing it using the dual pixel AF...really curious if it works.

gabebalazs wrote in post #16414044
Believe it or not, I like this one a lot more

Definitely a +1

That second bird looks very nice! Well done.