Photos with clarity

[Vectis Birder]

Occasionally we see wonderful photos that are sharp and very, very clear. For example see this (http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/164131/ppuser/10256). Obviously the right light goes a long way towards this but also is it the processing or having a fast lens?

I look at my photos and often I see grainy crap and far too much stuff only fit for the the recycle bin. I use a Nikon D80 with Sigma 70-300mm and 170-500mm lenses plus Adobe Photoshop 4.0 for processing. It would be nice to get a crystal clear photo once in a while, but it doesn't happen.

[Stranger]

Judging by your shots from Ecuador I don`t think you have too much to worry about.

[gordon g]

It starts with really good quality glass. Without this, the image the sensor is recording is already below par. Then good camera support, by whatever means - I think most people would say for the big lenses a tripod is needed in most circumstances (and I used to be a dedicated handholder of my bigma, until I moved up to a 500 prime, which is ok for short spells of handholding, but is better tripod-mounted). Good exposure control is also important, both to get a reasonable shutter speed to avoid motion blur/camera shake and to get decent colour. Depth of field is also important compositionally. Only after that lot does post-processing make a difference.

[Harold Stiver]

Good light and good equipment go a long way but there are things you can do to improve your results.

1) Shoot towards the highlights. If your histogram shows space towards the highlight side, you can increase your exposure somewhat.

2) Set your white point when you are processing. One of the ways you can do so is to use Curves and use the white point dropper to set the white point. I have a simple tutorial on color correction which includes setting the white and black points. (It refers to Photoshop CS, but I suspect your photoshop edition will work)

See Tutorial here (http://ontfin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=1)

[Vectis Birder]

Thanks Harold, I'll give it a go.

[Sout Fork]

Occasionally we see wonderful photos that are sharp and very, very clear. For example see this (http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/164131/ppuser/10256). Obviously the right light goes a long way towards this but also is it the processing or having a fast lens?

I look at my photos and often I see grainy crap and far too much stuff only fit for the the recycle bin. I use a Nikon D80 with Sigma 70-300mm and 170-500mm lenses plus Adobe Photoshop 4.0 for processing. It would be nice to get a crystal clear photo once in a while, but it doesn't happen.

Just using the single example you gave I think the main reason the photo is sharp is because it's a tripod mounted close-up. Given the equipment listed he couldn't have been much more than 15 feet away from the subject and the pic is "near full frame" for such a small bird.

Get close and use a tripod and I think you will be surprised at how much better the quality is.

Here's a few pics taken this way through a cheapo $100 lens. I don't think you need to spend $5000 on a lens to get sharp pictures. There's more to it than just hardware.

Keep in mind they have been drastically down-sized and compressed.

SF

[Vectis Birder]

Thanks for the input - great photos there SF; what lens did you use? - as I'm not going anywhere in 2008 I'm going to spend it improving the old photography.

[ikw101]

Sometimes I wonder whether our expectations are completely unrealistic.

Frequently I see photographers handholding 500mm f6.3 zooms pointed in the general direction of a Kingfisher 300 yards away. During mid-summer in the tropics if you're very lucky I suppose there's a chance of a reasonably sharp multicoloured blob if the heat haze doesn't kick in. Whilst I'm all for being optimistic some people's expectations are beyond belief.

Spending more and more money on lenses and cameras isn't the answer. A very good lens (not often Canon or Nikon release anything less) is normally at least 95% of the quality of an excellent lens. The differences are marginal.

The answer is good technique and getting close, preferably very close. More often than not the pro's have their shoot planned in advance and are prepared to wait patiently for their target bird to get within distance. This allows for trial shots to be taken that help ensure the optimum settings are made before the bird arrives. The rest of us rely upon wild optimism and the remote chances of being in the right place at the right time.

[Vectis Birder]

Frequently I see photographers handholding 500mm f6.3 zooms pointed in the general direction of a Kingfisher 300 yards away.

Funny you should say that. Today I took a wildly optimistic shot of a Kingfisher 300 yards away, handholding my 170-500mm zoom. Yes, the pics are crap, but I was expecting nothing else. Just a record shot in this case. :-O
But I agree. It's no accident that my best pics are of birds that are pretty close.

Apart from that, which shall remain hidden, I got these today. The birds were near, and it was a good bit of practice. They're not too bad and I'm pretty pleased with them.

[Harold Stiver]

The answer is good technique and getting close, preferably very close. More often than not the pro's have their shoot planned in advance and are prepared to wait patiently for their target bird to get within distance. This allows for trial shots to be taken that help ensure the optimum settings are made before the bird arrives. The rest of us rely upon wild optimism and the remote chances of being in the right place at the right time.

Absolutely!

Also I would emphasis that while you can get lucky (I had an adult Redtail sit full frame and ignore me like I was invisible today), you need to give yourself the chance. Going out as often as you can increases these chances.

[kittykat23uk]

I think these are about the best I'm going to be able to get in terms of detail with my FZ18 :cat:

[ikw101]

I think these are about the best I'm going to be able to get in terms of detail with my FZ18 :cat:

Nice photo's especially the Hoopoe. :t:

Great to see what the Leica zoom lens is capable of - in the right hands. Unfortunately we don't seem too much sunlight up here and in my experience the Panasonic sensor really suffers in anything less than Meditteranean sunshine. If only they'd put a decent sensor in it. Possibly worth experimenting with an external flash?:cat:

[Sout Fork]

great photos there SF; .

I think, as far as quality is concerned, that your swan shot is about as
good as anyone can reasonably expect. I know I would be satisfied with
that level of optical performance. Nice shot.

It's my opinion that too many people on these forums are looking for a
hardware fix to their poor photos. Their time would be better spent on
learning about the habits and behavior of birds - habitat, time of year,
preferred food, mating seasons, weather conditions etc.

As far as my lens...

... I don't use conventional telephoto lens' on my camera (a Pentax DSLR).
For my kind of shooting - fast moving, nervous, small, passerines often
in heavy brush - even a 500mm focal length lens often does not have
enough reach (about 15x). At 500mm we are at about the practical limit,
price and sizewise, for a telephoto. Even if you had the $7200 to spend
on a 600mm Canon prime you would still only be getting about 18x and end
up with a 12 pound monster.

Instead I use a Pentax 100mm spotter that gives me 38x and a series of
astro scopes at prime focus that give me a power range from 15x-60x.
This is what I now use:

Astro Tech 80mm f/7/560mm fl APO triplet
Pentax 100mm f/6.2/620mm fl ED spotter
Celestron 102mm f/5/500mm fl "Wide View" achro
Orion 120mm f/8.3/1000mm fl achro

All of the pictures I posted here were taken with my most inexpensive
lens the Celestron 102mm.

Speaking of "reach" this is the best I can do and I'm at the limits of
power and optics using the Orion 120mm barlowed to 60x. For those who
don't know a barlow in a astro scope works similar to a TC in a
conventional telephoto - it increases the apparent focal length of the
lens.

First one at about 120 feet and the second one at 90 feet. Typically I shot from 15 to 60 feet. The first one was cropped a bit and the second one is full frame.

Take care,
SF

[kittykat23uk]

Nice photo's especially the Hoopoe. :t:

Great to see what the Leica zoom lens is capable of - in the right hands. Unfortunately we don't seem too much sunlight up here and in my experience the Panasonic sensor really suffers in anything less than Meditteranean sunshine. If only they'd put a decent sensor in it. Possibly worth experimenting with an external flash?:cat:


Thanks! Unfortunately this camera doesn't have a hotshoe for an external flash. It is true that the quality suffers in poor light but it is still possible to get some reasonable wildlife shots even in winter in Norwich. Here are a few recent ones:

[postcardcv]

Good glass, good light and good technique seems to be the required combination for getting the very best shots. With the 170-500 you'll need to be stopping down to ~f9 to get the sharpest results out of the lens, which means you need lots of light. Using a tripod will also make a big difference to shots, it gives the best chance of recording fine detail.

I only use very basic post processing software and only tend to tweek the exposure and white balance, if a shot needs more than this to rescue it then I bin it. Looking at shots on the web I think you can see when a shot has needed a lot of processing, it astounds me how many over sharpened shots are on the web. A shot that is good out of the camera will look naturaly sharp, shots that have been heavily sharpend on the PC lack the natural look.

I also think it's worth mentioning the difference between images that look good on the web and images that will print well. I've taken shots that can be made to look good at web size, but are actually very poor shots. This shot http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/137998/ppuser/3294 is a heavy crop from a very cluttered shot, looks fine on the web but would not print well. Where as this shot http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/168344/ppuser/3294 is uncropped and looks much better as a large print then it does reduced for the web.