PetKal wrote: Conrads, nuggets or gold or road apples......but that's the way I do it. Then I get results like this, similar to your duck crash landing. Granted, I was using the 300 f/2.8 IS for this shot which renders great colours and is sharp enough.
Ouch I think I just cut my eyeball looking at this image, its so sharp!
OK guys, looks like Conrad and Noelle are runnin' outta steam.
Let me share with you one of my rare encounters with a GBH. I mean, I am not going out of my way to find them, if I stumble upon one, I'll shoot it.
This bird was quite distant and the 400 f/5.6 was not nearly long enough. The best I could do is make sure the lens was very steady and focus was good because I knew I'd end up having to crop a lot.
This is about 100% crop.
Conrad, I see you gaining an upper hand here. The Pole Hawk is smashing but the kingfishers should be the envy of many of us. That in-flight shot is precious, never seen it done so close.
I think we need to take a quick look at your camera settings though. What picture style have you selected, and what are the custom set parameters if you have any ?
It almost looks as if a major NR was applied on the hawk so that the fine feather detail was lost.
In a nutshell, I think you've made some major strides when it comes to capture, exposure, composition and framing.......now what perhaps remains is a bit of fine tuning in image processing and attention to detail.
PetKal wrote:
All in all, my emphasis is on camera/lens work so that I do not have to do fancy PP which holds no appeal to me. I guess that's why I seldom shoot RAW.
Pete, shooting JPEG with "in camera" processing is for sports/wedding shooters and photo-journalists who either take very large numbers of images or need to get their shots to the newspaper photo-editor as quickly as possibly.
Shooting animals and birds you need to be more selective (if I take, say 250 shots in a morning I will retain probably only 10 as "keepers") and RAW is the only way to go. Post processing does not have to be "fancy" - I use PS Elements 6 (I have access to CS4 but it is overkill for what I do) on an iMac and can normally "fix" an image to my satisfaction for web publication or printing in less than a minute.
The added advantage is that you always have the original "digital negative" to go back to and re-process as new software becomes available and/or your processing skills improve. I often spend a wet miserable day looking back at images that I thought were great at the time and finding I can make considerable improvements.
Without wishing to pi$$ on Conrad's current enthusiasm and high productivity rate, I can honestly say that all of his images could be improved by processing the RAW files, and perhaps also giving a bit more thought to camera setting, especially exposure and aperture, in the first place.
Not being negative (forgive the pun!!), but ANY image can be improved by processing whether it is shot in RAW or JPEG. Now that memory cards and external hard-drive storage is so cheap, there is no excuse for not shooting in RAW.
Colin Key wrote:
The added advantage is that you always have the original "digital negative" to go back to and re-process as new software becomes available and/or your processing skills improve. I often spend a wet miserable day looking back at images that I thought were great at the time and finding I can make considerable improvements.
Colin
Colin, I think you've identified nicely what I also consider to be a major drawback of not having RAW "negatives".
PetKal wrote:
Conrad, I see you gaining an upper hand here. The Pole Hawk is smashing but the kingfishers should be the envy of many of us. That in-flight shot is precious, never seen it done so close.
I think we need to take a quick look at your camera settings though. What picture style have you selected, and what are the custom set parameters if you have any ?
It almost looks as if a major NR was applied on the hawk so that the fine feather detail was lost.
In a nutshell, I think you've made some major strides when it comes to capture, exposure, composition and framing.......now what perhaps remains is a bit of fine tuning in image processing and attention to detail....Show more →
I could not have said it better!
Conrad that little Kingfisher in flight is AWESOME!!!!!
I also agree that we need to help you with some fine tuning and shotting in RAW will help you make your images perfect!!
Colin Key wrote:
Pete, shooting JPEG with "in camera" processing is for sports/wedding shooters and photo-journalists who either take very large numbers of images or need to get their shots to the newspaper photo-editor as quickly as possibly.
Shooting animals and birds you need to be more selective (if I take, say 250 shots in a morning I will retain probably only 10 as "keepers") and RAW is the only way to go. Post processing does not have to be "fancy" - I use PS Elements 6 (I have access to CS4 but it is overkill for what I do) on an iMac and can normally "fix" an image to my satisfaction for web publication or printing in less than a minute.
The added advantage is that you always have the original "digital negative" to go back to and re-process as new software becomes available and/or your processing skills improve. I often spend a wet miserable day looking back at images that I thought were great at the time and finding I can make considerable improvements.
Without wishing to pi$$ on Conrad's current enthusiasm and high productivity rate, I can honestly say that all of his images could be improved by processing the RAW files, and perhaps also giving a bit more thought to camera setting, especially exposure and aperture, in the first place.
Not being negative (forgive the pun!!), but ANY image can be improved by processing whether it is shot in RAW or JPEG. Now that memory cards and external hard-drive storage is so cheap, there is no excuse for not shooting in RAW.
PetKal wrote:
Conrad, I see you gaining an upper hand here. The Pole Hawk is smashing but the kingfishers should be the envy of many of us. That in-flight shot is precious, never seen it done so close.
I think we need to take a quick look at your camera settings though. What picture style have you selected, and what are the custom set parameters if you have any ?
It almost looks as if a major NR was applied on the hawk so that the fine feather detail was lost.
In a nutshell, I think you've made some major strides when it comes to capture, exposure, composition and framing.......now what perhaps remains is a bit of fine tuning in image processing and attention to detail....Show more →
Thats Peter. It would seem that my improvements in the photography aspect of it all is far ahead of my post processing skills. I have not really even tapped the potential of using raw nor have I ever attempted to use fully manual setting on my cameras! i guess that's one of the things that separate pros from amateurs like myself.
Let me see, for picture style I use Standard with Sharpness at 5, Contrast at 6, Saturation at 0 and Color Tone at 0. I have High ISO NR set at Strong. You know reading these settings I think there's some room for adjustments hehe... I'll work an fine tuning and not be so intimidated at trying to work with the RAW files. Thanks again for your advice Peter!
Colin Key wrote:
Pete, shooting JPEG with "in camera" processing is for sports/wedding shooters and photo-journalists who either take very large numbers of images or need to get their shots to the newspaper photo-editor as quickly as possibly.
Shooting animals and birds you need to be more selective (if I take, say 250 shots in a morning I will retain probably only 10 as "keepers") and RAW is the only way to go. Post processing does not have to be "fancy" - I use PS Elements 6 (I have access to CS4 but it is overkill for what I do) on an iMac and can normally "fix" an image to my satisfaction for web publication or printing in less than a minute.
The added advantage is that you always have the original "digital negative" to go back to and re-process as new software becomes available and/or your processing skills improve. I often spend a wet miserable day looking back at images that I thought were great at the time and finding I can make considerable improvements.
Without wishing to pi$$ on Conrad's current enthusiasm and high productivity rate, I can honestly say that all of his images could be improved by processing the RAW files, and perhaps also giving a bit more thought to camera setting, especially exposure and aperture, in the first place.
Not being negative (forgive the pun!!), but ANY image can be improved by processing whether it is shot in RAW or JPEG. Now that memory cards and external hard-drive storage is so cheap, there is no excuse for not shooting in RAW.
Don't worry Colin, I don't mind the "pi$$ing" on my enthusiasm! Hehe... I don't think most criticism people give here is "negative" (great pun). And yes memory is cheap. I shoot raw+jpg but tend to just use the jpg when I process. I'm not sure why I shy away from processing the raw files. I'm learning to be more selective. I try to compose my shots more the last few days and not just spray-n-pray like I was in a few weeks ago. So thanks for the advice! Cheers1
Conrad Tan wrote:
Let me see, for picture style I use Standard with Sharpness at 5, Contrast at 6, Saturation at 0 and Color Tone at 0. I have High ISO NR set at Strong.
Here is a suggestion: Sharp (6), Contr. (1), Sat (2) and Tone(0). Also, turn any in camera NR off.
Conrads, nuggets or gold or road apples......but that's the way I do it. 
