Red Footed Booby.

[Cookster]

March 11, 2009 at 2:06 am

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Thanks for looking. All C+C greatly appreciate. Any advice for how to treat these in photoshop??

sean

[gregor]

March 12, 2009 at 2:53 pm

They seem to be a little un-sharp, I checked the EXIF you could try to bring up your iso even higher, or use monopod, could you share how you did actually photograph them?
And another question, would you mind sharing where you actually photographed them. I have been thinking now for a while about heading to Galapagos and getting the blue footed ones :) , they seem to be very friendly over there!

[Cookster]

March 12, 2009 at 11:22 pm

Gregor
These were taken on Half Moon Caye off the coast of Belize. Went on a dive trip and stopped on this island for lunch. There was a viewing platform in the middle of the island at the same level as the canopy. Used my Nikon D40 and an 80-300 Nikon lens which is incompatible with the camera so have to manual focus, and was handheld.
Still figuring out how to use the digital camera, does increasing ISO not increase grain or noise?
There were a mixture of frigates and boobys nesting in the trees. Have a load more interesting shots but none worthy of C+C on this site, just for my own curiosity. And a bag load of pelicans and lizards. Check out Birdman post elsewhere on this thread

Thanks for the reply

[gregor]

March 13, 2009 at 4:35 pm

Hey Cookster,
Yes high iso will increase the grain in your photos, but either you have un-sharp photos that you can’t do anything with, or you have a bit of noise that you can try to remove with the software. Manual focusing is not fun when you’re shooting birds though :) , so I’d say you did pretty well there. Try to get mono pod that will help you avoid blur due to hand shake. Don’t be afraid using higher iso, see how far you can go with it and what is acceptable for you, you can also try to remove the noise to some extent with software.

Cheers,

[Cookster]

March 14, 2009 at 11:17 pm

Thanks for the advice. Have a tripod but don’t tend to carry it on vacation. Might look into a lightweight telescopic monopod. Not sure how to get into the Exif, what do you percieve to be the problem that a higher ISO would fix as it was midday sun so I thought the exposure was ok, is it to allow for greater DOF? I’ll give the noise reduction a go too. might even try sharpening. still trying to teach myself photoshop so its a slow process.

Thanks again

Sean

[gregor]

March 15, 2009 at 11:21 am

Hi Cookster,
Higher iso will allow for greater shutter speeds, that means it’s just easier to hand hold longer lenses and still get sharp photos, for greater DOF you would change you aperture to a higher number , you were shooting at f5.6 which is as wide as it gets on your lens (which was good selection). The exposure is ok on these photos, you have whites blown out (lost details in whites) on top of the birds but you had harsh sun light falling on them where the other parts are in shadows, kind of tricky to photograph.
What software are you using to view your photos? You should be able to view your exif data there, you can see it in the photoshop as well go to file-info and just check what’s there!

[Cookster]

March 17, 2009 at 11:14 am

Makes a lot of sense. I’m still thinking in film mode where I wouldn’t normally change ISO mid roll.

I’m using Photoshop 6, I’ll search for exif data when I’ve a bit more time

Thanks

Sean