Another hummingbird, C&C always welcome

[benlonghair]

Another of my little ruby throated friends. Captured last night. A little noisy, mostly from sharpening it. I think I'm starting to bump up against the combined limitations of my body and lens.

D60 | 300mm | f/7.1 | 1/60 | ISO 400

Full Size.

 

[icassell]

Very nice! I'm at work, so I can't demonstrate, but you should get a noise reduction program (I use Noiseware Pro, but there are others like Noise Ninja). I'll bet you could get rid of a lot of that noise. Check out imagenomic.com for a free trial.

http://imagenomic.com/download.aspx

 

[D-B-J]

great! just get rid of the noise

 

[benlonghair]

Can a noise reduction program remove the noise without destroying the sharpness?

 

[icassell]

Can a noise reduction program remove the noise without destroying the sharpness?

You frequently have to juggle this. I tend to go back and forth between NR and sharpening and do a little of each at a time. You should also try masking your subject and using significant NR on the background, then using less NR on the bird. Try it -- it often surprises me.

 

[Nod]

It is a nice shot, but I'm wondering why you used ISO 400, it looks like it was bright enough to use 100 or so?

 

[icassell]

I did a quick-and-dirty filter in Noiseware Pro. You could probably do better with a little time spent (this took under 30 secs and I didn't do any more sharpening). I usually filter before I do any sharpening.

 

[benlonghair]

It is a nice shot, but I'm wondering why you used ISO 400, it looks like it was bright enough to use 100 or so?

It was somewhat bright, but the wind was blowing and I needed to keep shutter speed up. Plus this was hand held.

I did a quick-and-dirty filter in Noiseware Pro. You could probably do better with a little time spent (this took under 30 secs and I didn't do any more sharpening). I usually filter before I do any sharpening.

That looks pretty good. Now I need to hit the lottery so I can buy all the glass and software I want.

 

[belongus3]

Looks pretty good...nice green shades

 

[icassell]

The sharpening programs have free "light" versions in addition to the free demos.

 

[Moodyville-ain]

Now I need to hit the lottery so I can buy all the glass and software I want.

I'm in the same boat buddy. :cry:

I long for a 400mm or longer lens. As others stated Noise ninja works well. I found it on a torrent site, so the price was pretty good

A nice shot that can easily be rescued. A technique I use is to isolate the subject with the free lasso tool. Then to noise ninja the rest, because the subject (usually) has less noise. Up the smoothing slightly more then normal, then sharpen at will. Noise ninja also comes with an unsharp mask built in if you know how to use it. So you can get rid of noise and sharpen at the same time. (Ive never been good with USM though.

 

[JIP]

I think it's a great shot, it's rare to see a hummingbird sitting still in a photograph.

 

[Janik Photography]

It is a nice shot, but I'm wondering why you used ISO 400, it looks like it was bright enough to use 100 or so?

It was somewhat bright, but the wind was blowing and I needed to keep shutter speed up. Plus this was hand held.

I did a quick-and-dirty filter in Noiseware Pro. You could probably do better with a little time spent (this took under 30 secs and I didn't do any more sharpening). I usually filter before I do any sharpening.

That looks pretty good. Now I need to hit the lottery so I can buy all the glass and software I want.

There's free alternatives to everything

You can also use a program like GIMP (gimp.org, FREE) to reduce noise. It won't work as well, but 90% of your noise will disappear, if done right, with little sharpness reduction. Look on the "Tutorials" section of their website for things like "Selective Gaussian Blur" and "Noise Reduction". Basically, you'll be blurring the noise pixels together, which is all a noise reduction program really does.

 

[benlonghair]

I think it's a great shot, it's rare to see a hummingbird sitting still in a photograph.

If you're interested, I'll tell you exactly how to do it.

First get a hummingbird feeder. Set it up where you get a good view. Sooner or later, a pair will find it. Then wait for another pair to find it. Once the second pair has found it, the more dominant male will defend the feeder by sitting nearby and going after any other hummingbirds that try to feed and aren't his mate.

 

[Jeff Colburn]

Very nice composition, and the noise removal you did helped a lot. A little sharpening and you will have a wonderful image.

Have Fun,
Jeff