Reworked:
Original:
Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
RMRP had an open house today, and it was pretty great. This red-tailed hawk is one of their non-releasable education birds. It was extremely dark for shooting in the building. I wanted to try a portrait as I’ve never done anything like this on a dark background.
Specific Feedback
I can’t remember ever shooting with ISO 25600 before… cleaning up the noise was hard.
Technical Details
Fujifilm X-T3, 1/1250s, f/6.2, ISO 25600, 162mm
Very nice! It’s wonderful to be able to capture portraits like this. The noise and IQ in general looks good to me. I wonder about bringing up the exposure a little, even though that would bring out a little more noise. Maybe just squeak up the Whites slider a bit?
NR is so good these days that it is not usually difficult – what method did you use?
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Very intense look there, Debbie. Well done. I think the NR is fine. I agree with @Diane_Miller that it could be brightened a bit and brightening the whites especially. Great image.
Cheers,
David
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Very nice portrait, Debbie. It looks like you handled the noise quite well. I am a bit surprised that there’s not more detail in the breast, since you got such nice detail in the face. I agree with the others that the bird could be a bit brighter. Pulling the whites up is a good idea, especially since they don’t get as much noise as the shadows. Maybe a curves adjustment just bringing up the top end?
I’m going to move this over to the “Everything Else” forum as captive animals belong in that forum, Debbie.
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@Diane_Miller @David_Bostock @Dennis_Plank I reworked this hawk to bring up the whites and lighten it up overall.
@Diane_Miller I usually try both Topaz AI and Lightroom Denoise on the RAW file to see which is better. Seems like it’s about 50-50 - I think Topaz DeNoise and Topaz Sharpen often work better than the combined AI version on many images, and the Lightroom Denoise is also sometimes better. For this one I used Lightroom Denoise and then a little Topaz Sharpen after exporting.
