A couple of Bluejay pics

[bullyfish]

Here are a few pics I took today out in the rain.

Av, 1/500, 5.6, ISO 800, 300mm

I think the ISO 800 made it grainy? C+C Please...

[buzzsaw]

I don't think the cloudy day did you any favors, since you asked for C & C... I'll give mine. Some camera's work better at higher ISO's, I tend to agree with your assesment of a bit noisy and out of focus. Keep taking pics and posting them.... wait for a nice sunny day and get out in the morning.

[Steve Foss]

Bully, the grain is certainly iso 800 related, but your sensor is good enough so that's not a big issue. The DSLRs from Canon and Nikon all now do a good job of handling iso800. And pick up noise ninja, which you can download online. It's inexpensive and is the best noise reduction software I've used or heard of.

Your shutter speed is plenty fast to catch the jay sharply, so that's not the issue unless the jay was moving quickly in each of the examples, which isn't likely. The out of focus images may be partly the consumer glass, but a close look shows that in each case it's not the eye of the bird that is in sharpest focus, but some other part of the bird, either in front of or behind the eye. In nature, as you likely know, it's the eye that counts the most. Likely this is a combination of two factors. Jays move fast, so they are hard to capture in focus. Factor two is that consumer grade glass moves more slowly on autofocus than top glass. It's not that your glass isn't sharp enough to do justice to the bird, just that it's probably moving too slow to catch the bird in exactly the right focus at exactly the right time.

Which 300 are you shooting? Is it a zoom? In almost all cases, zooms are less sharp than fixed mm lenses (called "prime" lenses.) You posted some image info, and that's helpful. If you post All the equipment/settings with each image, that makes it easier to critique what may be going right and wrong. Your use of the "Av," a Canon convention that indicates you had the camera set on aperature priority, tells me it's a Canon, but I don't remember which model you have, and I don't know which lens.

Ex: Canon Rebel XT, Tamron 70-300 f4.5-5.6 zoom, . . . and all the rest of what you've already posted.

[bullyfish]

Steve,

My glass stinks! No, its OK but its nothing to get excited about. I'm using the 75-300mm 4-5.6 III USM. A pretty inexpensive Canon lens. In a few weeks I hope to purchase the Sigma 50-500mm, even though everyone tells me to get the Canon 100-400!!!!

I'll throw this question out to everyone, is there a way to embed the image settings in the image?

Thanks!

[Steve Foss]

Bully: Your lens has very good glass quality, but is a little slower than the Sigma. The Sigma 50-500 (called the "Bigma" by many) is an excellent lens. You won't go wrong with it. Just make sure you shoot it from a tripod or other stabilized platform. It's more affordable than the 100-400L IS, and most of us get what we can, not what we'd most like! I know the 400 f2.8L IS is sharper than my 100-400L IS, but who's got that kind of money? Luckily, being a member of Canon Professional Services, I can get loans of top Canon equipment for free, simply insuring it while in my use and returning it to Canon when they dictate.

What body are you shooting?

There is a way to embed the image data, but I don't know how. Since I always shoot RAW, I just note the settings when I open up the image in photoshop and write them down.

As an example of what today's cameras can do at high iso settings, here's an image of Big Walter Smith, a Twin Cities bluesman who sang at the Snow Ball here in Ely earlier this month. Note the slow shutter speed that a monopod and image stabilization make possible.

Canon 20D, 100-400L Image Stabilizer, iso 3200, 1/40 sec, f5.6, 320mm. Shot with assistance of Slik ultralight monopod. No flash. Very light sharpening in photoshop (oops, rechecked records — make that no sharpening), no color correction, removed color digital noise using noise ninja only from forehead of base player in background.

[bullyfish]

Steve,

I'm using the Rebel XT (350D) body, which I just love!

I checked out the "Bigma" at one camera store the other day and it deserves the name BIGMA! Just over 4lbs! WOOF!

It was fast though and the autofocus did not hunt around like my lens.

I went to another store to check out the 100-400 since the first place didnt have any, but since I wasnt a "pro" they didnt give me the time of day so I told them where to stick it!

I did pick up a Giottos monopod yesterday after holding that Sigma. After a few hours holding that heavy sucker you'd have "popeye arms"!

[Steve Foss]

Bully, the XT has virtually the same sensor, and has the same internal image processor, as my 20D. It can easily duplicate the image of Big Walter for smoothness at high iso, although you can't expand the XT beyond 1600. You'll definitely need that monopod for the bigma. And a tripod is better yet. If you only have a monopod, try to find a place where you can use the monopod but also lean the camera/monopod against something like a tree or the side of a car for added stability. Also, if you haven't already, get used to shooting bursts of images. Often, the first image captured during a burst is the fuzziest, and they may get better as you progress through the burst. Some of it is autofocus capability, but some also is because a person sometimes punches the shutter, jerking the camera, instead of gently depressing it. As the burst progresses, that initial jerking goes away, allowing for sharper images.

[bullyfish]

Thanks for the help Steve!!

I agree with you about taking pictures in bursts.

I messed around with one of these pics a little more to help reduce the noise and came up with this...

As always...practice practice practice!

I'll be so excited once we get another sunny day around here!!!

[Steve Foss]

Bully, you may not want to hear this, but comparing the two I think your first image had less noise and grain (especially in the background) than the second one!

And a note about noise: Noise, while its cause is quite complicated and technical, manifests itself most often as random pixels with a different color than those around it, so high noise looks like strange color speckles. Any sharpening, adding contrast or color saturation will intensify noise.

Noise reduction software should be applied before other post processing applications occur.

[Steve Foss]

Here's the result of some post processing I did on the original image you posted.

I applied noise ninja first thing. Then I lassoed the head and neck and sharpened them independently of the rest of the image. I sharpened nothing else. Then, to the image as a whole, I added a bit of saturation, dropped mid-range levels slightly and bumped up the contrast just a bit. Now the head appears as sharp as the wing bars, which had been the sharpest part of the original image. And the image appears to "pop" a bit more. Lively images are always a challenge when shooting in flat light.

[buzzsaw]

Quote:

---

Noise reduction software should be applied before other post processing applications occur.

---

shouldn't somebody also crop (if need be) before they clean up the noise?

[Steve Foss]

Well, sort of. I do NN first. Why? There are times when the effectiveness of noise reduction to some degree dictates what I leave in and crop out of an image. This almost only ever happens when I'm shooting high iso indoor sports. If there's a noisy spot I simply can't make good with NN, I may do a tighter crop to get rid of its distraction, and I can't know that until I do NN. So NN first, crop second. If I'm shooting at a lower iso (800 or below), it's only an issue if operator error leads me to underexpose an image.

For images that look properly exposed, the crop is the first thing I do. And then, if there are spots in the shadows that seem a bit underexposed or noisy, I lasso them and do NN on them individually, rather than NN'ing the whole image. That keeps me from NN'ing places that don't need it.

[bullyfish]

I'll address this question to Steve because he is shooting a Canon but everyone feel free to chip in...

What settings do you go birding with?

I have been using Apeture Priority mode with the apeture open to 5.6. I use center weighted metering. AI Servo. ISO400.

I know there is no one perfect setting and you have to play around with things depending on conditions.

I have had some great shots but today was very frustrating! I couldnt get a darn thing in focus today!

Thanks for all the great information! I have learned so much from this site and Photography On The Internet (POTN).

[Steve Foss]

I use all the same except I use one-shot, not Al servo. Part of your focusing problem could be because Al servo is constantly re-evaluating the subject and never stops wanting to refocus as the subject makes minute movements. With a slow lens, that can be deadly. Try one-shot mode. When the bird sits still long enough, focus on its eye, keep the shutter half way down to lock focus, recompose your shot and hit a burst. You should see a better focus result that way. It helps to practice on slower-moving objects, like people.