Raybo Loc: George Town, Grand Cayman

These are a couple of shots taken in what was about 25-30 minutes of several of these (13 at one count) in a tree down the street for well over half an hour.

First real run with a new to me Canon 90D, & a Tamron 150-600 G2 that I've had a while, but with very limited use on a 6D mkII...still learning what it can do.

Uncropped, minimal PP. Just tried t clean things up and not "amp" it up with saturation and
vibrance. Tried to stay as close to "true" as I could with my limited experience.

I'm actually pretty happy with them, but I'm pretty new to the game...

At 100%, still seems noisy and unsharp. My question is, am I being a bit to critical? Don't have access to a good printer. Wondering if these would print decently on a good sized print.

Any and all comments/suggestion greatly appreciated. Thanks for looking...

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PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Consider using Topaz Sharpen AI. You can for 30 days at no charge. I would also crop those two trees on the left.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You probably shot this as jpeg, and what you are seeing is fine detail being lost to in-camera noise reduction.

An IS0 of 3200 is pretty high for a crop sensor camera. Your shutter speed was 1/2000 and aperture F8. You can use that lens at F7.1 or even wide open if necessary, and a shutter speed of 1/1000 which would givew you an ISO of 1250 or even lower with a slightly lower shutter speed. Shooting raw would give you very precise control over noise/sharpening to properly fine tune the image. You've got a great camera, and with a little adjustment to your camera settings you'll be getting outstanding images in short order.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The colors and framing are nice. Practice shooting as slow as possible, leveraging the lens VC and to bring down the ISO in low(er) light situations. Your processing seems to have lost a lot of fine details in the clean-up from ISO-3200. Obviously, 1/2000 is a good setting for freezing a take-off, but while the birds are sitting still on a branch, you'll have better results from the camera around 1/500. Also when working with nearly still subjects, set a single AF point (if possible) on the bird's nearest eye. Using the AI Servo setting, focus and capture a burst of 3 or 4 images. Reposition your stance / AF point and repeat each short burst as much as the birds allow or you think you've got that one keeper of the bunch. Watch and prepare, particularly for birds looking around, and anticipate when they'll look your way or otherwise create the 'best' pose.

You might revisit the processing if you wanted to print these. They're a good start and hopefully will wet your appetite for more practice and ever improving results.

Raybo Loc: George Town, Grand Cayman

I have that, but the hopes for the post was to try to determine what adjustments to technique/settings with this particular camera/lens combination I could use to improve things going forward.

Thanks for the reply.

Oh, and I agree with cropping. Have already done that and rotated it to vertical in one version.

Raybo Loc: George Town, Grand Cayman

It was shot in raw. Hardly ever shoot in jpeg unless I know for sure I'm going to just provide them to something/someone without any concern or need for correction.

This was pretty much the first "outing" with the camera/lens combo. I had an older "consumer" crop sensor.
Was not happy with the quality, so bought a full frame a couple of years ago, and I shoot mostly landscape with it. So, it's on a tripod with a wide angle lens a lot of time. Frequently with ND filters on it for longer exposure.

So this was a bit of a change in a lot of ways, but I have an interest in developing my skills for wildlife/nature.

Took the camera last weekend to a bird sanctuary we have. Used the 90D with a 70-200 F2.8 G2. Lot of shade and in closed areas with a roof, and another hazy day in general. Tis the season for that for us.

Tried the larger aperture and slower shutter speed, and think I ended up over compensating because got rid of a lot of the noise, but even with the lens IS, ended up with some softness, and I'm sure it's from shake.
Will take your comments under advisement and see how things go on the next outing.

Practice, practice, practice...

Thanks for the reply.

Raybo Loc: George Town, Grand Cayman

Those two shots are actually part of a 10-15 shot burst...that was one of the big surprises for me with this camera. It rips them off pretty quick. When I "squeeze" the shutter release like I was shooting a firearm, it takes 3-4 before I can get my finger off it. Lot to learn!

Actually, last night I woke up wondering if the PP software I use (or more likely the way I'm applying settings) was contributing to things at all...so this morning I opened the raw file in Canon's DPP and did a jpeg export with absolutely no adjustments. Haven't had a chance to put them side by side, but on first look, this looks a little cleaner with no adjustments than the one I posted originally. It was done with ON1. Guess next thing is do a straight export out of ON1 with no adjustments to figure out if it's the software or me...

Guessing it's probably going to be me...

Thanks

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CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Yes, this image has more potential for adjusting the exposure and sharpening the details. You still should strive for the lowest ISO, based on the slowest shutter and / or widest aperture for the composition.

Raybo Loc: George Town, Grand Cayman

I generally do try to keep the ISO as low as possible. Just going to take me some time to figure out what works in various situations with wildlife...mountains, beaches, deserts and their related flora don't tend to move very fast...

I may need to check out an alternative PP package and see what kind of difference it makes.

Thanks for the feedback