Blue Heron

[mmeyer]

Hello Everyone,

I haven't been able to post much lately it's been pretty crazy. I do have to say that I have had a chance to look at some of the recent posts and you guys are posting some great shots.

I was out tonight getting some shots of the river and a Blue Heron dropped in. I have been trying to get a good shot for my parents. A Heron is a little reminder of someone that was very special to my family and has been gone for a while now. Please check out these shots and give me some feedback on them. I am hoping to use one for a gift and would like your opinions as to which one is the better of them.

You can't tell by looking at it but the water flowing in the background is waste water from the nearby yeast plant. In the last photo you can see the steam from the water. I think it adds to the shots nicely since you can't tell what it's coming from.

Thanks for looking and helping me out with this!!

Mike

[yakfisher]

I like #2. Nice work, it is tough to choose.

[WifeKidsandDog]

Mike I like the first two and if I had to choose between those, I'm leaning towards the first one but I do like how the water stands out in the second one too. I like the blue of the heron in the first one.

I do think the heron should have a little more presence in the photo, so would you be able to crop and still have enough resolution to print? I've have success upsizing a photo to print by increasing in 5 percent increments (and don't sharpen) in Photoshop.

Cheryl

[Steve Foss]

No. 2 works best for me with no further cropping. The color looks quite saturated on my monitor. Nice work!

[MN Shutterbug]

It's really tough to choose, they're all nice. However, I'm a little partial to #3, due to more of a full side profile of the heron. I'm surprised there are still herons around, this late in the year.

[finnbay]

I like either 1 or 2. And as the others have said, I think a little cropping will take a good photo and make it even better!

[Dbl]

I'm leaning towards #1....I think.

[fishinchicks]

I like both #2 and #3. It is hard to choose!

[mmeyer]

Thanks Everyone,

I also liked #1 and #2 the best. I can't really crop it at all since it's a little soft and it gets pretty crummy looking when I do. These shots really make me want a new lens. Every one of my shots were soft and I was using a tripod. I hope it's not me.

[Steve Foss]

Mike, maybe this will be a little more feedback than you're looking for, but bear with me.

I pulled the exif data on the second image, and I see you shot it at 1/6 sec. Even from a tripod using a remote shutter release I think that's too slow to ensure sharp images of the heron. It can be done in certain situations, but if there's any subject movement at all at the scale of the bird in your image, blur will be the result.

Also, if no remote release was used, the ss was slow enough so a hand on the camera tripping the shutter would introduce more blur.

I see you were using what must have been some type of 300mm (zoom?) that opens to f5.6 and you shot at f8. Bumping that aperture open to 5.6 would have helped a bit and might have allowed you to turn the corner on sharpness here. With an iso of 400, you were right on the edge. Bumping iso up would have gotten you a faster shutter speed, but I'm unsure about the Nikon D50's noise performance at higher iso ratings.

On the other hand, a lens that opens to f2.8 is a mighty nice thing to have in low light situations like this.

In any case, these are excellent environmental portraits, and sometimes things that don't look quite sharp enough on the computer monitor can turn out nicely as prints.

[mmeyer]

Steve, thanks alot for the input. I went with f8 to be sure I had enough depth of field but I should've tried wide open too I guess. Normally I would have only shot wide open but I wanted to make sure the whole bird was in focus. I think maybe I over thought it. I hate to go too high on ISO because my D50 doesn't do a great job in the higher range.

Do you know anything about the noise reduction software that's out there? Does it actually work?

Thanks again.

Mike

[Steve Foss]

Mike, I use noise ninja. You can do a search and buy it online and download it. You install it as a Photoshop plug-in and access it through the "filter" pulldown menu. You can also download free profiles on the same site for the full line of cameras so NN can more effectively profile your image.

It works quite well, as do several of the other NR programs. I generally use it on backgrounds rather than on subjects, because it can have a slight softening effect. At higher iso ratings, I make sure I check the histogram and expose as far to the right as possible without blowing highlights, since it's the mid-range and shadows that develop noise, and the farther to the right the histogram the less noise.

[Dbl]

I am a Noise Ninja user as well, but there are some serious new players out there now. Buzzsaw is a Noiseware satisfied user so there are some good options out there.

[finnbay]

I've used both noisware and noise ninja. Ninja seems to be a little easier to use and I thought did a better job. That being said, the Noisware software I had was a very early version.