European Bee-eater

Gallery: AvianPosted July 26, 201498 views4 comments

Penthaz, Switzerland
D300s 300 mm f2.8 ED VR2 with 2TC series 3 attached
ISO 800 1/5000 s at f6.3 EV 0.00 WB Auto Centre weighted average
Hand-held
Raw file 16 bit original Tiff file cropped from 34.9 MB to 7.36 MB
Photoshop CS6

Roughly twenty birds returned to breed in the disused sand quarry at this unique site in Switzerland. From my vantage point at the top of a cliff my interest lay in photographing Bee-eaters flying overhead with camera angles approaching vertical! Exceptionally, one bird perched briefly on a tree stump, not far from where I was standing. Normally I would have used lower values for ISO and shutter speed but I simply didn’t have time to readjust basic camera settings. This is one of a dozen similar shots which bother me with their chronic noise and lack of acuity. At 1/5000 s there should be no camera shake issues. Where am I going wrong? Your help would be much appreciated.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on July 26, 2014 at 8:41 AM

Hi David: Yes, as you've noted, "lack of acuity". I don't see any noise in this image, but certainly a lack of sharpness. Looking at this image, it appears the sharpest point (and it isn't sharp) is the lichen on the tree. When you focus are you using a specific AF sensor or are you in the mode letting the camera choose which sensor? This image also looks like is had a lot of noise reduction applied to it based on the feathers. Was post processing done? Maybe if you took the unprocessed RAW file, just convert it to a Jpeg and post that it would help begin to determine where things are not going well.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on July 26, 2014 at 11:45 AM

Beautiful bird on a great perch.
Something in the processing went wrong, although this as is is a good "Photo Art" image.
My suspicion is that you used a good bit of Noise Reduction, and this rarely works with birds - it kind of runs the feather detail together and makes the image appear "plastic."

My experience with the 300 F2.8 is it handles a single 1.7TC exceptionally well, and in good light, a single 2.0TC - but I wonder if trying 2 did you in?

Good suggestions from Keith - let's see if we can help here.

Sandy

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 26, 2014 at 7:21 PM

I wish I could guess what's wrong here, David. With those parameters this should be sharp as a tack. Did you do noise reduction in post processing? I'd be curious to see the image with as little post processing as possible-it might help point to where the issue lies.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Todd Bauer on July 26, 2014 at 11:16 PM

Nice bird, by the way. But since you asked, my admittedly uneducated hunch is 80% crop + underexposure (the center weight averaged the sky) + atmospheric haze (background is white). Next time, you will halve the distance...under a bluebird sky, while spot metering his back. Can't wait to see it.

Registered on May 28, 2014, 50 Posts, 176 Comments