Re-Post - with Topoz Denoise
I was excited to find that I caught this Caspian Tern right after it had caught a fish!
any and all comments are welcome!
The white splash might be over-exposed, but I liked the intensity of it too.
Nikon Z9 (rented), 500mm f/5.6 pf lens with adapter, ISO 2000, f/5.6, 1/ 3200 second.
Cropped about 80%. Lightroom for spot removal and yellow and orange saturation increases. Topza DeNoise.
Oh wow, Mark. This is awesome! Everything is perfect. What a catch! I don’t mind the over exposed splash. It adds to the whole very well.
I LOVE the color of the water here Mark. Beautiful glow and backlighting on this image. I also don’t mind the blown out water and the really sharp water droplets. That’s a huge crop. Holds up pretty well. You gotta love these terns. Good head on position and a decent look at the underside of the wings. Sweet!
Outstanding job catching this tern head on and splashing in the water. The backlight on the water is superb. And to catch the fish in the mouth is another plus. If this is 20% of full frame, the minor amount of noise in the enlargement is not an issue.
Wow! Incredible action and lighting in this one, Mark. It is pretty noisy, but stepping back to a respectful distance instead of pixel peeping will take care of that.
Perfect timing on the capture. The lighting and the splashing water really makes this shot.
Hi Mark
You keep razing the bar, with this photograph. This is a great action shot.
Peter
Ps
I wonder what a side by side with DXO DeepPRIME and Topaz DeNoise would look like?
@Dennis_Plank @David_Schoen @David_Haynes @David_Bostock @Allen_Brooks @peter , Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. I’m glad you like it, noise and all!
Peter, I wonder too. I’m not familiar with DXO’s software. I looked up online and found lots of reviews and comparisons between the two noise reduction programs. I wonder if some situations favor one over the other.
Fabulous!! The strong tonalities work fine with the action!
There is more noise here than I get from an 80-90% crop at ISO 3200 (R5) and I doubt your camera is to blame. What were your settings for Denoise? With the Low Light (default settings) mine come out almost too clean, with some nice free sharpening.
I’m assuming you now own a Z9!? 
@Diane_Miller , Thank you. Your comments made me go back to see my settings. Surprise surprise! I thought I had run this through Topaz Denoise, but discovered I had not!
I’m re-posting the image up above with the only change being Topaz Denoise. I used the “standard” setting, and “Auto”, which made Remove Noise 21. I dialed that back to 17. Enhance Sharpness of 30, and Recover Original Detail of 35 are from the “Auto” settings.
Better?
PS - still haven’t pulled the trigger on a mirrorless action camera. I’m now trying out my friend’s Sony Alpha A1, which is pretty nice too!
Perfect! I found with the older algorithms that NR didn’t reach onto some “sheltered” areas around branches and the like so I would always cruise around the image at 100% and check. Then several years ago they added Low Light and Severe Noise and that problem went away. But I really don’t know if Standard and Clear were also improved. I should see what I can find out. Somebody recently (don’t remember who, but with a different sensor) had a better result with with Clear than with Low Light. Maybe I’m not using the best options, but I always get very clean results without the plastic look. I jump back and forth between Low Light and Severe Noise in a 100% view (which I use if LL gets a little too clean looking). I’ll start looking at the other two. The main difference I see is in some details like sharpening.
