American Kestrel in the Bog

[Jim Almquist]

These guys were all over in the bog yesterday. Sorry about the lousy shot but will try to get some better ones. These shots are too cropped but there was no detail at the original size.

[buzzsaw]

Cool birds!! They were thick in the cities about two weeks ago, I'd never seen that many before.

P.S. Jim, you may want to back off the sharpening as you you have the mother of all halo's in that second image. I'm not sure what you use for sharpening but if you just do a luminocity/light channel sharpening in LAB mode using smart sharpen you will not get a halo. If you want me to walk you through it on the phone, let me know okay.

[Jim Almquist]

They are thick in the bog right now but with the lousy light and how spooky they were made it tough to get very close. The action I used did a 2 passes with USM and it really only needed one but the funny part is that I am sharpening in lab to prevent halos.

[buzzsaw]

Quote:

but the funny part is that I am sharpening in lab to prevent halos.

Well something is going awry for you. That bad boy looks like he has electricity flowing around his feathers. I'm not sure what your sharpening settings are, but I suspect thats where the problem is.

[ShawnZ]

I tried for these guys driving through the bog recently. Incredibly difficult to find a cooperative bird, it seems that this species has become quite adept at knowing about bird photographers and how to elude them and drive them crazy

I've even had a couple who seem to take particular joy in waiting till the vehicle is turned off and the camera is raised before they take off the second before any images can be obtained. Maddening!! But still lots of fun, actually I've come to find their distain for the camera rather humorous. I've recently seen some amazing kestrel images that I know without being told were baited with mice which I'm sure is fairly effective this time of year when insect prey is hard to come by. Not that I'm pro or con baiting, that's a personal decision, only to say that's a technique that I know is being used.

[Dbl]

Jim,

You obviously cropped these shots a long way in, you just don't have many pixels left to sharpen with! There really is no sharpening that will work when you've lost all the pixels you have by cropping!

Try it, take any picture you have that looks sharp and zoom in to 100% and crop it. Now try and apply some sharpening to that cropped shot and compare it to your original zoomed at 100%. Its not pretty is it?

Instead of converting to Lab try applying your unsharp mask or smart sharpen (there is a time and a place for both) and then choose Fade-->Unsharp Mask from the Edit menu and in the box that comes up change the mode from Normal to Luminosity.

Just remember that if you start cropping you don't have as many pixels to sharpen, so if you are applying the same sharpening that you use normally you will begin to introduce artifacting.

Hope that helps some.

[Jim Almquist]

Thanks for for the tips from all. I think that getting closer would fix the majority of my problems Shawn hit the nail on the head with these guys so I will just have to be a little more stealth next time.

[MN Shutterbug]

Instead of converting to Lab try applying your unsharp mask or smart sharpen (there is a time and a place for both) and then choose Fade-->Unsharp Mask from the Edit menu and in the box that comes up change the mode from Normal to Luminosity.

After Dan showed me the tip of changing from normal to luminosity, I've used it ever since, and have really noticed the improvement in my sharpened subjects.

[Birdsong]

Originally Posted By: Dbl

Instead of converting to Lab try applying your unsharp mask or smart sharpen (there is a time and a place for both) and then choose Fade-->Unsharp Mask from the Edit menu and in the box that comes up change the mode from Normal to Luminosity.

After Dan showed me the tip of changing from normal to luminosity, I've used it ever since, and have really noticed the improvement in my sharpened subjects.

Oh, shoot. I forgot. And I just finished pp. Next time!