A day in the local park.

[wjh31]

Foreword: some images feature strong noise due to exccessive highlight/shadow recovery and improper use of the sharpening tool, see the discussion after this post for further details.


Spent a little while in one of the local parks taking a few snaps.

Just a small place, its a couple of short paths through wooded areas, and a decent sized pond full of wildlife.

The pond in Bourne Hall park, named after bourne hall ,located behind the camera, which serves as the local library.

Full size - 14MB.
9 images @28mm, iso200, f/11, ~1/100s

There is plenty of wildlife around the pond, including many canadian geese which graze on the grass.

Full size - 10MB.
6 images @400mm, iso400, f/11, 1/125s

Additionally, there are some more typical birds you would expect to find in the area, including ducks, gulls, and of course pigeons.

Caught in the act:

Full size.
400mm, iso800, f/5.6, 1/640s

A pair of swans also linger around the area, while they seem fairly tame, get too close and they will start to growl at you.

Full size.
400mm, iso200, f/5.6, 1/160s

Head back towards the wooded areas, and grey squirrels are everywhere, while they are fairly tame, they still keep alert for danger.

Full size.
400mm, iso400, f/8, 1/60s

Under the trees in the less grassy areas, they can be seen foraging for fallen nuts and seeds, aswell as raiding caches for stored food.


Full size.
400mm, iso400, f/8, 1/25s

Focal lengths are in 35mm equivilant, and some images still had fairly agressive crops. Unfortunately some are still a little soft due to either too short and exposure for the focal length (overcast day) or because ive still not yet got used to the shallow DOF that comes with a DSLR.

Hope you enjoyed, C+C welcome.

[Geoff F]

I'm afraid that big lenses and dull weather mean that some compromises have to be made; even really expensive lenses have their limits.

I often try pushing the ISO to 800 where I am unwilling to sacrifice aperture or speed, which is a common problem with wildlife subjects. Alternatively it means adding flash if you are close enough; which can be useful for macro subjects.

But all in all that is a good effort under difficult conditions. Personally I'm not keen on off centre subjects, like the squirrel, unless there is something else there to add balance. But I know that some people prefer it that way, so it's just a matter of taste.

[wjh31]

Personally I'm not keen on off centre subjects, like the squirrel, unless there is something else there to add balance. But I know that some people prefer it that way, so it's just a matter of taste.

I am a slave to the rule of thirds.

Ive not yet got into the habit of keeping an eye on the shutter speed in the viewfinder and adjusting other settings accordingly, but for some things like the pigeons mating i only got one shot, so was left with whatever the camera happened to be set to at that moment.

But yes, when i was with the tiny sensor on my bridge camera i would rarely go above iso200 for fear of loss of quality, but now 800 or even 1600 are acceptable if conditions call for it.

thanks for the comments

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Will,

A good record of the park, but for me, one of the biggest issues is actually noise, I think you may have brought it up in sharpening by not having a threshold of between, say 2 and 8 pixels set.

On the full size of number 1 there's an unbelievable amount of chroma noise, I would suggest running it through Neat Image or similar to rectify now. A bit of warning here of how big the fullsize files are would be nice; 14MB is big for the panorama, I have added for the one I know above.

DSLRs do take some getting used to after bridge cams , I'm still getting the hang of mine months later, but maybe you won't be as slow as me

Cheers,

[wjh31]

damn i did not notice quite the level of noise in that first image (which is probably the reason for the large file size). I shall have another go at it tomorrow and see if i took a slider too far or something.

And yes, i think the threshold was at 0, ill remember to add that to the list of 'sliders to fiddle with', thanks!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Will,

Did I see from the EXIF you have CS4, if so, do you use ACR 5.x for RAW processing?
(or maybe this was a jpg capture )

Anyway, if you do use ACR, you may find this useful.
I have settled with my ACR defaults (as applied on the Details tab) to be almost minimal sharpening (because it is too crude) but maximum noise reduction (because it's actually very good and I gather works on a similar principle to Neat Image) I find it effective but non-destructive to fine detail.

EDIT: although I now notice the others all say GIMP 2.6.6, so the above may not help

~ probably the reason for the large file size ~

It certainly won't help

Cheers,

[wjh31]

ive had another quick look at the source images for the first picture and i believe the chroma noise comes from excessive highlight/shadow recovery. Rather than trying to get a good picture out of what is there, ill leave is as is as a lesson, and add a foreword to the OP.

I now notice the others all say GIMP 2.6.6

cs4 for raw processing and most PP, but then i usually use gimp for final cropping/resizing for web as i find its crop/resize slighlty easier than adobes. I haddnt noticed a noise reduction things in the ACR thingy, ill look for it next time.

[arith]

Nice pics of the park; I haven't seen as much noise as in your first but still like it. But liked your last squirrel most.

In fact I see a lot of squirrels but they are just too darned quick for me

[wjh31]

In fact I see a lot of squirrels but they are just too darned quick for me

Most of the animals there were a little tamed from people with bread etc.