Camera Labs

You’re right, it was a cloudy “bad light” day and the Raptor was way up there. Took the pic at full zoom with 100% crop. As shown by the “noise” in the picture, it’s not high quality, but I though it rare enough to be worthy of posting regardless.
500 mm lens would off been nice.

There is some post processing done to boost the saturation slightly, and I removed some very slight purple fringing on one branch. You can't tell on Flickr because of its size, but I was pixel-peeping and decided to run Neatimage on it and apply an unsharp mask. It was also cropped to isolate the bird more.

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Sony A300 || 18-70 Kit Lens || Minolta 70-210 f4 Beercan || Minolta 50mm f1.7 || METZ 48-AF1 Flashgun || flickr

I think if you played around with it in PS you could get rid of the fringing (I tried, worked quite well), and you can possibly get rid of some noise with neatimage, noiseninja, or some other software out there. The noise is a bit harder to fix since it's destructive to image quality, and applying NR can damage the details if not careful.

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Sony A300 || 18-70 Kit Lens || Minolta 70-210 f4 Beercan || Minolta 50mm f1.7 || METZ 48-AF1 Flashgun || flickr

If you want, why don’t you try and fix it with your software and re-post it.
As I doubt that I will ever get another shot like that.
The full size version is in folder “Macro/Animal” on my site.
Many thanks in advance.

Here's a very quick and dirty version:



I'd tweak it more, but I have to get to class. I'm sure many other PS wizards could do a lot better than me. Here's a quick list of what I did:
1. Removed the chromatic aberrations by adjusting Hue/Saturation of the blue and magenta. (downside is it grayed the sky, could probably be fixed)
2. Ran through Neat Image, cleaned up mostly chroma noise.
3. Reran through Photoshop, applied unsharp mask.

There's still some artifacts that need to be removed, and color might still be restorable to the sky.

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Sony A300 || 18-70 Kit Lens || Minolta 70-210 f4 Beercan || Minolta 50mm f1.7 || METZ 48-AF1 Flashgun || flickr

Beautiful images in this collection!
Surprising how close you got to that bird, csrussell! Did you use a cloak?
Also nice clean-up of the overhead shot. Good catch WestCoast!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Thanks Thomas! No cloak was involved whatsoever. The falcon could have cared less that I was there. It must be completely used to humans, which isn't surprising considering where I saw it. It was shot at 210mm (315mm equiv).

I do have to ask though... I'm not entirely sure that this was a Peregrine Falcon. It isn't my forté identifying birds, so if anyone can correct me I'd appreciate it. It's more of a guess based on google image searches. It was seen in Austin, TX November 13th.

EDIT: After much searching, I've come to the conclusion that it's a Red-shouldered Hawk.

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Sony A300 || 18-70 Kit Lens || Minolta 70-210 f4 Beercan || Minolta 50mm f1.7 || METZ 48-AF1 Flashgun || flickr

Thanks csrussell, that made a big and positive differance.

A couple of Doves in our garden trying to stay warm and inconspicuous.

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Nikkor 70-300mm vr, Nikkor 18-105mm vr

Canon "AE-1 Program" film SLR camera user since 1983

C&C always welcome
Joe

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I've upped my Iso, now up yours.
Nikon D700, Nikon D80, Micro Nikkor 105 f2.8 AI-S,Nikon 85mm 1.8D, Nikon 50mm 1.8D, Nikon 35mm F2D, Nikon 16-35 f4 VR, Nikon 24-70mm F2.8 AF-S, Nikon 70-200VRII, Nikon 70-300mm VR, 300mm f2.8 AI IF ED, SB-800, SB-900. Noiseware pro,NIK Dfine, Nik Colour Effex, Nik Sharpener Pro

Photographed at Blacktoft Sands (RSPB Reserve near Hull, UK) 17th Oct this year.



Canon 450D, EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS USM

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Cheers,

Phil
'I see dead pixels'

http://www.phil-lowe.eu [New Design]
Nikon D300, Nikon AF-S 70-300 mm VR, Sigma, 10-20mm DC HSM, Empty OXO packet
Panasonic DMC-LX3

Very nice catch, Phil! It's tail is almost transparent. How much did you crop?
And some nicely colored doves. Here we have mostly the greyish variety. And they don't often stop-over in my garden
And Greg: the structure of the feathers is beautiful. Would love to see this a little larger.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Thanks Thomas.
Well actually its cropped even more now after I noticed Gregory.Rotter's comment. Sorry Gregory.

The harrier occupied approximately a sixth of the full frame.
I doubt I will ever come that close again. It was a gorgeous morning and the sun was only just up and shining through the birds tail - hence the almost see-thru effect.

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Cheers,

Phil
'I see dead pixels'

http://www.phil-lowe.eu [New Design]
Nikon D300, Nikon AF-S 70-300 mm VR, Sigma, 10-20mm DC HSM, Empty OXO packet
Panasonic DMC-LX3

Some amazing shots in this thread.

I got a couple of ok ones on the weekend with the D90 and the 18-200VR lens

Kookaburra
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii22 ... _02172.jpg

Indian Minor bird
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii22 ... C_0348.jpg

Cockatoo (unfortunately not as sharp as I'd like)
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii22 ... C_0391.jpg

Just put [img]linktopicture[/img].
The first one is great! Nice subject, nice angle, nice lighting. Well done! And it's very sharp too!

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Sonyian?

My Flickr - Comments very welcome
Gear: a200, Sony 18-70 3.5-5.6 DT, Minolta 50 1.7 AF, Lowepro TLZ Mini, GorillaPod SLR Zoom
Saving for Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX HSM Macro II (50%)