BLEH...

Out of a large group of throw-aways, got this one decent shot....complete w/ tongue. And yes Steve, a female!!

Meant to include settings as they have been much discussed re. hummers. 300mm 1/640ss f5.6 ISO 800. Think distance was +/-20'.

Rog,
Its a good shot.
The noise is killing you though.

Bump up the shutter speed to 1250 and try again.
Maybe a flash would be the answer as your hummers are in your shady backyard.

jhayesvw wrote in post #16932096
Rog,
Its a good shot.
The noise is killing you though.

Bump up the shutter speed to 1250 and try again.
Maybe a flash would be the answer as your hummers are in your shady backyard.

Guess that's where I'm falling down-do not see the noise!?! And as for the ss, look at the DOF thread in Bird Talk-tried some shots like you suggested and ISO was at 3200. I'm not condemning your thoughts here, just experimenting and trying out things. Have had success w/ the flash, but again, so few visits, kinda afraid to go there for now.

You crack me up Rog! Even before opening your thread I was pretty sure what I'd find. I could envision you sticking your tongue out, but not the sweet little lady hummer.

Jeremy is right Rog, it is a good shot, but with a noisy background. If you had Image Editing OK turned on I'd treat you to a copy with less noise so maybe you could see the difference. As much as I like the 7D, it's notoriously noisy at higher ISO or on heavy crops. I also agree w/Jeremy that being very close is important. You're using 300mm at +/-20ft and I'm using 550-600mm at <15ft. I feel your pain on the limited opportunities as I'm stuck with only 1 bird too....luckily still a male for now.

It looks to me like you've got good feather detail on the whole body with just a slightly soft tail. I'm a little confused by the color of the catch light....was she close to a feeder that might have caused the pink light in her eye? You're like me, there's always things you have to hammer out for yourself. Keep on hammerin'

I agree with both Steve and Jeremy Rog. I have always agonised with the noise on the 7D though I can't seem to let go of the camera afterthese many years. With some careful processing you can get killer shots of hummies. I haven't tried it yet this year as I am trying to build a studio around the feeder but here is a before and after I had done for someone. EXIF should be intact.

SOOC :

Beautiful shots Rog. I see the noise too.

Beautifully done Rog! Excellent timing, you got some tongue action going on there!

ardeekay wrote in post #16932135
Guess that's where I'm falling down-do not see the noise!?! And as for the ss, look at the DOF thread in Bird Talk-tried some shots like you suggested and ISO was at 3200. I'm not condemning your thoughts here, just experimenting and trying out things. Have had success w/ the flash, but again, so few visits, kinda afraid to go there for now.

I understand what you're saying. You don't get many visitors so you don't have as much
time to experiment. As Steve said, the feather detail is good. A little selective denoising and you would have a nicer shot. Perhaps its your post processing that is falling down a bit.

What program do you use?

Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts and help.
Jeremy, was thinking of going to pm here but maybe others are piggybacking for help and info. My pp of choice is PS Elements 9. Early this year I bought LR 5 in hopes of better organizing everything which has yet to happen. Also, and I believe it was by you among others, the sharpening and noise reduction features were heralded. But haven't gotten that far in the LR learning curve. Do my noise reduction work in Elements-raw converter. I do know about the masking tool and use it, mostly by pre-conceived ideas: low iso, about 40-50, high iso, up to about 80. This instead of what I see(or don't see). Do not seem to have any success w/ filter noise red. Actually, I do believe I'm so obsessed w/ sharpness that I do not address noise as I should.

Maybe this exchange here will get me off my b*** and learn some more.

OK Rog,

Here's a copy of your original file with some noise reduction performed mainly on the background. I've changed the file name so if you download to your computer you won't overwrite your original. It's really a pretty nice image and hopefully you can see some improvement.

IMAGE LINK: http://s407.photobucke​t.com …d-2b_zps354ce136.jpg.htm​l

CamFan01 wrote in post #16938093
OK Rog,

Here's a copy of your original file with some noise reduction performed mainly on the background. I've changed the file name so if you download to your computer you won't overwrite your original. It's really a pretty nice image and hopefully you can see some improvement.

IMAGE LINK: http://s407.photobucke​t.com …d-2b_zps354ce136.jpg.htm​l

Gee, I take nice shots! Looks great, Steve. Now can you explain, in layman's terms please, what you did here? Thank you!

I'll try Rog, knowing full well that "layman" is a relative term
The simple way of putting it is I did a differential noise reduction eliminating/reducing the grainy background that was detracting from the main subject.
The long story - I use Photoshop CS5 and I think you said you had plans to use the copy of LR5 you have sometime in the near future (j/k). The concept is the same to remove the grainy nature of high ISO or large crop images.
In this case I used a selection tool in PS to first select the lady hummer and then did an inverse selection which then selects everything but the bird. Then you can apply whatever noise reduction function you may have in LR that will only target the background in this case because that's what is selected. I've even gone so far as purchasing a 3rd party noise reduction add-on for PS called Topaz DeNoise that I really like. After I was happy with the noise reduction, I applied a tad more sharpening to the bird using another 3rd party sharpening add-on also from Topaz. I ended up with a little color balance adjustment on the catch light to try to make it whiter...it sort of worked.
Hope this is all confusing enough that you'll do some digging into your LR. It will be uncomfortable at first, but you will definitely be happier with the end result of producing better images.

Rog, to take it a step further, it is obvious there is a feeder to the left of the hummer. The red saturation is strong. You can selectively reduce the red saturation on the underside of the hummer.

Ted

Great shot and nice timing. I like Steve's PP too!