I like to get a good reflection when a bird is in water. This Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) in S Korea gave the opportunity for something a bit unusual. However, it was quite dark that day so I decided to use a very high ISO. I also had to clean up the reflected crest part in Photoshop, as it had grass obscuring it.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’d really like to see it a good bit sharper.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Nikon 7100 plus 200-500mm f 5.6 lens
1/500, f9, ISO4000 at 500m
A really cool species and I like the reflection shot, Mike. Is this a large crop? There appears to be some pixelization-or perhaps it’s noise, particularly in the reflection. It could also be an artifact from trying to sharpen an image that just isn’t quite focused.
Thanks, Dennis - yes, it was a large crop (can’t remember by how much as I took this a year ago). And I surely sharpened it with Neat Image, a plug-in I have on Photoshop. I’m curious, what is pixelization, and how do you see it?
Hi Mike. Pixelization is just being able to see the individual pixels that make up the image. I don’t think that’s really the case here-I think the noise spots are just getting magnified by the crop and looking somewhat that way. If you want to see it, just keep zooming in on an image in Photoshop until you start seeing little squares forming that make up the image.
Yes, a really nice opportunity to get the reflection, but the image quality suffers, even at the magnification of the post here. Do you still have the raw file? (Or was it a JPEG?) The best approach these days is to do careful tonal adjustments in a raw converter then go to PS to reduce noise with Topaz Denoise AI (latest version) and then carefully sharpen, watching both at 100% view. Always watch all adjustments at 100% view! And do the most you can in raw conversion before going to PS. ISO 4000 is easily correctable these days.
All these adjustments are basically done with artifacts, albeit subtle ones. The trick is to be careful how far you go. Even zooming in here on the larger size, the belly shouldn’t have all those speckles. There is also too much contrast – darks and whites with no detail.
Diane, it’s exactly for these sorts of comment that I joined NPN. No, I don’t have the RAW file any more, but I’ll remember your tips the next time I want to salvage a photo which I like but which didn’t have the best result in camera. I’ve heard of Topaz Denoise AI (also they do a Sharpen I think), so will get these soon. Many thanks!
The water color and pose are great. But, as noted, there are image quality issues. Tech-wise, I would have been shooting at f/5.6, which would’ve allowed a big drop in ISO. F/5.6 would’ve given plenty of DoF.
As to the image quality, I’d love to see the original frame. I bet there is a salvageable photo in there.
