showing off

There seems to be enough here to stand on its own, but if you can

suggest photoshop improvement, please do.

Hmm... To me, the grain is a little bit on the heavy side. That distract a little even though I am quite used to seeing grain on photos. Another thing is the composition. By composing this way, the bird doesn`t get a lot of room in front of it`s face. Usually it is seen best, that there should be some amount of room for the movement - or for the eyes.

 

You have managed to get a sharp image from the gull. :)

 

Alpo

Thanks for the observations. I do always suffer from grain buildup when I "save for web" in photoshop. The original is a bit better. It also gained grain when I cropped it, there is more room all around the gull.

I know that it takes some luck to get a gull in flight and maintain focus. The D200 is not nearly fast enough to autofocus, so I usually go to manual. This was manual because I had an old manual focus lens in place. Please let me know if you are aware of ways to improve this?

Hmmm... Usually I save the image as it is, in full size or cropped. Then I take the image to ACDSee Pro and resize it in there. (This is just my habit of checking if the image is ok.) As it comes to the grain, when needed, I run the Noise Ninja-plugin or standalone version for to reduce the amount of grain.

 

Here is a link to one of my photos. This was shot with D50 and a 80-200 2.8 lens (the oldest version). I used autofocus, luckily the movement of the bird was horizontal to my position. I panned the movement with my camera. I too have several manual focus lenses, so I think that I know what you mean.

 

My image of Gull was shot at rather bright moment. Your capture seems to be shot at early/late moment, when there is less light available. That adds a lot of possibilities for grain to emerge, especially if the image is underexposed while high ISO:s are being used.

 

Here is another link to my concert photos: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5231056&size=lg

 

That was shot with a D50 & simple Sigma-lens with a 5.6 maximum aperture for the 200mm end. I used 1600 ISO and shot handheld. The image is also a little bit cropped. Then I ran Unsharp mask, Noise Ninja, adjusted levels and contrast. Finally added frames... There is obviously some amount of grain, but perhaps not too much. I guess it is easier to notice grain from the outdoor images that have a lot of blue sky, than from the concert photos, etc...

 

Well, this is just my two cents... :-)

 

Wishing joyful photographing for you!

Alpo

That's great advice. I copied your comment and will try it.

Thanks

I have tried this so often but I never get it right. By the time I frame and focus, the bird is miles away! Excellent Steve, don't know how you did it!

Thank you for stopping by John, and for taking time to drop a note. This really is a product of perseverance(and luck). You need a very long lense to get birds in flight. You also may do better with manual focus(auto-focus is too slow). If I remember correctly, this was done with a 500mm mirror lense, at a 1.5 factor in the digital camera. I Always get very grainy images, which disappoints me. The one thing that's easy is that you don't need to earn the trust of the model. That's one thing I have no clue how to do, and your ability is enviable. Of course you are so well accomplished that you do your models a great service by portraying them so favourably. Yours(not exclusively) truly are the best subjects that God has ever produced.

Pretty darn nice capture!

Thanks Barry

 

good coposition and timing..congrat..Best regards NEZIF

Thanks Nezif