It's been a while (sing along)

[buzzsaw]

My old service for uploading pics went wierd (afreeimagehost) so I had to find another place to host my pictures, here are a few from the last month guys.

Lake Minnetonka Loon.

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A pond by my house is the home for this Wood Duck.

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A local GBH to Orchard Lake across the street.

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Goose fly by!

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Incoming Woodie.

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A few more.

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A far away shot of Bufflehead landing.

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Pied Billed Grebe.

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Who's hiding... me or the ducks?

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A neighborhood Bluebird in Lakeville.

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A cowbird in the backyard.

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A Robin belting out tunes.

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[mcary]

Very nice!!! I especially like the loon and heron. What are you shooting with?

[floating minnow]

Bravo! Bravo! Somebodys upgraded have they not?

[Dbl]

Excellent shots buzz, I especially like the loon.

[Andrew Erickson]

awesome nice shots man

[jonny_redhorse]

Nice indeed!...... jonny

[walleyefisher0990]

great pics!!

[Tom Wilson]

Nice Job Mike. Love the Woodie shot with the four woodies and the first one.

Tom W

[schr0563]

I love the photos, but I have to ask this question. I have noticed that many of the shots have blurred edges around the main subjects, what causes this? Am I just seeing things? I do not want to take away from the quality of work here, I simply want to understand why some posted photos look like this, and others don't. Could it be specific to the photo host site where the images were uploaded?

[Steve Foss]

Great work Buzz. I like the pair of geese each with the same profile.

schr: Can you be more specific? Are you saying the edges OF the main subjects in some of the photos are blurred, or that parts of the foregrounds or backgrounds have blurred edges. It makes a difference, because the causes for each type of blur are different.

[Dan Thiem]

Way to go Buzzy! The first three rocked Dude!

[buzzsaw]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you liked. To answer a couple questions, I'm now using the Nikon D200 (it's a machine) and generally I go with the Nikkor 80-400 VR AF lens and I post process with Photoshop Elements 4.0. Out of these pics I really only care for the Loon, GBH and Goose shots... all of the others are whatever IMO. But it's always nice to have a woodie fly by.

I have about 1,500 images yet to see if they are worthy of spending the time post processing, I believe I will get some pretty decent ones and some delete-ski's. As far as Schroeders questions goes, I guess I'm with Catfish on asking for more specifics as I am not sharpening much anymore and I have top of the line equipment, so CA (Chromatic aberation) is not happening. I'm curious, I'm hoping I can learn something from you. Anyways, thanks again guys, I'm back to adding to what you guys have been doing and it's good to see some new blood showing up on the threads.

[Surface Tension]

Very nice buzz.

schr0563, I think your not letting the photos load completely.

[buzzsaw]

I might as well add a few more.... thx Surface Tension!

I have spent a little time the last few weeks in my chest waders trolling through the backwaters of the Minnesota River in search of anything nature related and snuck right up on this Muskrat, gotta love having your elbows touching the top of four feet of water while your snaping pictures.

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A flycatcher.

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One more Robin.

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[MarchelRipley1]

Very nice Loon, Canadian Goose and Muskrat, I like the way you framed the Great Blue Heron and Loon shots.

[mcary]

I love the muskrat Buzzsaw. I've been out a couple of days and have had the chance to watch some muskrats at work. My longest lens goes to 200mm, so I'm not able to get those nice tight shots. I have to get my hands on a 400mm, it really seems to allow that extra length to get nice frame filling crisp images. Keep on posting, I really enjoy looking at your work!

[buzzsaw]

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Keep on posting, I really enjoy looking at your work!

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Thanks you, I really do appreciate comments like this I'll keep them coming.

[schr0563]

A little more explanation - what caught my eye were the two geese on the previous page. The head and tail of the left goose seemed distorted/blurred/shadowed. The goose is clear, but the background behind it looks altered. I also noticed this with the solo woodie (very slight around the beak), the loon (slightly on top of head and under the head), and the 3 woodie shot (again slight, but the background directly around the birds seems disrupted compared to the rest of the sky). All of the other images appear clear as day, especially the last three you posted. Now, based on the response that no one else noticed this, I am wondering if it has something to do with the way I am viewing these images, like the size of my monitor. It was mentioned that they might not be loading all the way, and this could be, but how do I check this?

My last idea is that I need to get glasses!

[Tom Wilson]

It's not your equipment, or your imagination. I too see it. Mike and I talked about this a while back. I think it's got something to do with the way they are being saved to web, but his process seems accurate. I think it is a factor of the amount of specific processing such as contrast and sharpness and then when reduced in size it does something funky. Mike's processing is very similiar to mine, so it just seems weird. I have seen this before as well in my workflow, but it is usually limited to 100% crops, that are heavily sharpened, and were underexposed to begin with. The problem is that like the loon shot above, it isn't a heavy crop. It is slightly underexposed, but not to the point that it should have left the visible artifacting. I really think it is in the reduction and the quality settings used in the "saveforweb" process.

Bottom Line--they're good photographs, and considering that Mike just got started in photography less than a year ago, it says a lot about his potential and his eye for nice photos.

[jonny_redhorse]

nice images Buzz!...glad to see you back again!...... jonny

[MarchelRipley1]

Buzzsaw, please shoot me an e-mail regarding your loon shot. marchelripley1 at hotmail.con

Thank you

[Deitz Dittrich]

buzz- the muscrat and the GBH are awesome.. love em all but those two totally did it for me!

[Steve Foss]

I noticed some slight aberration as well, but didn't think much of it. I had similar things happening to the photos I saved to put on the Web until I used the "save for Web" feature in Photoshop CS. Then it went away.

Buzz's camera body is a total winner, and the lens is top glass, so chromatic aberration is not an issue, nor is in-camera processing, and since he said he didn't sharpen them much, then that's not the issue either. Saturating and bumping contrast in post processing can produce those effects, but it's sharpening that's the biggest villain.

It's not easy to maintain the luster and subtlety of an image when it's posted online. The vast majority of consumer computer monitors only resolve to 72 dpi, which is fairly coarse.

One note, Buzz. In the second batch, which are quite nice, your flycatcher is an eastern phoebe.

[buzzsaw]

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It's not easy to maintain the luster and subtlety of an image when it's posted online. The vast majority of consumer computer monitors only resolve to 72 dpi, which is fairly coarse.

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I couldn't agree more! Once again your on top of your game!

Thanks Dietz and Steve! It must be the re-sizing thing. Steve, can I send you the large file of that Loon, it looks great on my home computer and I want you to see what you think. It's funny, you get to a certain expectation level and certain "little things" can be nit picked a little bit. I also appreciate your bird knowledge Steve, I would have gone on thinking that was a Flycatcher.

[Tom Wilson]

Mike, The full size version you sent me looked fine--did you get the processed version I sent you?

Tom