It's still nesting season...

[robertwsimpson]

I took these four at Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Florida. Hope you like...

Flying back from a trip to Home Depot



Arriving back at the pad


"That's all you came back with!?"


C&C is always welcome.

 

[pbelarge]

Robert
Great shots, looks like you had a lot of fun.



1. Did you get wet taking those shot?

2. Were you using your 2x converter with your 200mm?

3. What time of day?

4. How long of a day was this?

 

[robertwsimpson]

1. nope, there is a very nice boardwalk to hang out on at this place.
2. also, no, I wasn't using the AE-1. I was using the 50d with the 55-250mm lens.
3&4. I probably got there at around 9:00 or so AM and left around 11:30AM.

Thanks for looking!

 

[LaFoto]

Lovely captions that go with really good photos.
#4 makes me laugh - there he went all the way to Home Depot and all SHE can do is nagging!

 

[robertwsimpson]

Birds are funny creatures. Their dynamics are always fun to watch. I took about 350 shots that day... tons more to come!

 

[lvcrtrs]

Robert, don't forget to number your pics, makes it easier to comment. I LOVE the action and capture of #3. Don't know if you sharpened but the halo is evident here and there. Check the leading edge of the wing on #2. I read on this forum the advice to use the blur tool and go along the halo to help make it less visible. It's easy and it does work. Would love to have your weather and birding opportunities.

 

[icassell]

Robert, great captures! I think you might have done a bit of oversharpening resulting in halos around the twig in the first two. Funny, I was looking for the twig section at home depot the other day and couldn't find it

 

[robertwsimpson]

Robert, don't forget to number your pics, makes it easier to comment. I LOVE the action and capture of #3. Don't know if you sharpened but the halo is evident here and there. Check the leading edge of the wing on #2. I read on this forum the advice to use the blur tool and go along the halo to help make it less visible. It's easy and it does work. Would love to have your weather and birding opportunities.

Well, the 55-250mm from canon is definitely a challenge to shoot with... I will dissect #2 as an example.

for satisfactory sharpness, f/8 is required. This creates an undesirable ISO setting of 500. That is in order to achieve a relatively high shutter speed of 1/1250 sec to freeze the motion of the bird in flight and counteract my shaky hands. Now that the photo is taken, the real fun begins. Even at f/8, the lens is not overly sharp. I apply the following settings: USM sharpening, radius 2px, amount 150, threshold 200 (the second and third settings, I have found to be arbitrary and dependent upon the editing software you have chosen). The photo is now close to the sharpness that I like. The exposure must now be adjusted. This photo was ever so slightly underexposed. Tone curve is adjusted to compensate and add contrast where I want it. Compression time. Highlight and shadow compression are applied to even the lighting across the scene. The photo is noisy. Noise reduction is implemented to counteract this. Since this photo included a large amount of blue sky and green foliage, I decided to use an abnormally large level of color boosting.

So in conclusion, I'd say that while the sharpening may have contributed slightly to the halo effect, there are probably better explanations, such as the compression that I used.

All that said, thank you for the comments. I also dislike the halo around different things in photographs. I don't know how this one slipped by me.

 

[robertwsimpson]

oh dang, upon further investigation, the level of sharpening, as well as the radius chosen was definitely contributing. I am thinking a re-edit is in order.

 

[robertwsimpson]

to remove suspision of other contributing factors, compression and noise reduction have been removed. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[pbelarge]

Could the halo also have been exacerbated by the order of your PP? I was under the thought that Noise reduction should be part of the beginning of PP...

 

[pbelarge]

I like the first photo more.

 

[robertwsimpson]

me too. at forum size, I think it looks better.

I do noise reduction last, because I can not tell how much I will need until after I have done the other stuff. The actual process does not take place until I convert the photo to JPG format, which is when all the other processes are taking place also.

 

[pbelarge]

I cannot remember where I read that noise reduction should be processed early on, as it may create other issues when performed later in the process.

I will try and go back to see where I read this.

 

[icassell]

Much better! I like it!

I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I noise-reduce early (Noiseware Pro) and sharpen last.