National Aviary photos, part 1

perylousdemon · Mar 6, 2007

I dropped by the National Aviary here in Pittsburgh today. The National Aviary houses over 600 birds of more than 200 species, many of which are threatened or critically endangered in the wild. Check it out if you're ever in town.

This series was taken with my Pentax K1000 using my Vivitar 70-210mm macro zoom lens. All of the photos were taken at f/4 with a shutter speed of 1/60 or 1/125 (poor lighting sucks :grumpy:

). C&C greatly appreciated!

1) Toucan Sam! I know the tip of his bill is out of focus. I'm still having trouble using multi-prism focusing. :|

2) This shot amuses me. It just seems like the macaw is staring everyone down. "What are you looking at, punk?"

3) Sandhill crane profile. If anyone knows how to reduce noise in Photoshop without absolutely destroying detail, please let me know. Stupid Wal-Mart scanning the negatives at 96dpi... :grumpy:

4) The six-month-old spectacled owl chick named Franklin (after Benjamin Franklin, the inventor of spectacles). If anyone knows how to remove reflections in Photoshop, please tell me. :|

5) A flamingo busy preening its feathers.

6) I don't remember what kind of bird this is, but I liked the way this shot turned out (aside from the noise, grr).

LaFoto · Mar 7, 2007

These look like scanned prints (noise) and I like the effect. They are scanned prints, after all. (Though I would think if you have them produce the disc for you along with making your prints, the outcome should look a tad batter than my putting my prints on my own flatbed scanner).

What a beautiful place to go to.
Makes me think back to May 28 of last year, when my sister and I went to the bird park near by to see all those birds there, and I think we somehow captured similar ones, though continents apart. I photographed many of the plaques next to the voglières and might find out what the red one in your last photo here is ... "might" ... don't know if I will.

Would you ever consider working on your scanned prints any further after they have been digitalised and put on CD by Walmart?

For I would suggest a crop of the photos of both the toucan and the macaw, both have too much empty space above. And Toucan Sam could do with some lowering the highlights, too.

Actually, upon looking at all of these again, most of them leave too much room above the birds, room that you might have wanted to have around their feet. But that is THE mistake I made last year in May when I was in "our" bird park with my sister: I so concentrated on getting their eyes in focus, I never watched the whole frame and so often "cut off" their feet. And later, at home, I could have bitten myself in frustration over this.

perylousdemon · Mar 7, 2007

These ones aren't too bad in terms of noise, but I have a few other ones that I really like but can't post because of how noisy they are. I'm going to try Neat Image and see if that helps at all.

I already cropped the toucan image so that the little guy wasn't centered (that's such a bad habit of mine), but I sort of like the space around him. Same with the macaw. I'll test out a couple crops and see how they look. Thanks a bunch for the feedback.

JDS · Mar 7, 2007

I ran this one through Noise Ninja and it cleaned up pretty nice.....

edit..sorry if I was out of line posting this - just displaying what Noise Ninja could do with it. If you want me to take it back off let me know...

perylousdemon · Mar 7, 2007

Oh, it's all right. I did say my photos were okay to edit. Anyway, I ran this one through Neat Image myself, and I have to say I prefer it to Noise Ninja...

Noise Ninja seems to sharpen the edges of things in the background, causing them to be pixelated. Neat Image sharpens images without increasing noise. See what you think.

ravikiran · Mar 7, 2007

I like the shots, though, it would be better if you can do a little cropping. Yeah, Neat image is a better tool to use.
Thanks for sharing.

JDS · Mar 7, 2007

Yeah, Neat Image does seem to do a bit of a better job.. I like yours better

perylousdemon · Mar 7, 2007

Well, everyone seems to want to see cropped versions of the toucan and the macaw, so here they are. I also toned down the noise in a couple of the pictures I posted.

1) The sandhill crane profile with noise greatly reduced by Neat Image.

2) The unidentified orange and black bird image with noise greatly reduced by Neat Image.

3) The toucan image with some noise reduction and cropping. Highlights still need adjusted, but I can't find a good balance for them.

4) The blue-and-gold macaw image cropped.

LaFoto · Mar 7, 2007

Oh, hadn't I wanted to check my bird park plaque pics for info on the unknown bird? Uh-oh. Forgot all about it. Will do in a sec...

perylousdemon · Mar 7, 2007

It's okay. I can probably find it on their website, although, if you look at the digital pictures I took, one of the birds wasn't listed on the website. Weird, eh? Anyway, I decided to crop the images, and I do like them better.

LaFoto · Mar 7, 2007

But sorry, I cannot be of help. Can't find a bird like this on any of the plaques we photographed when my sister and I visited that bird park... I would have liked to help you.