Ben's nana Loc: Chesterland, Ohio

John,
I have both and am focusing on PS first. The photo club I joined will also be having a long course in Lightroom. I'm hoping by fall/winter I'll have a reasonable handle on both

Fran

Digital1022 Loc: Holland, PA

Took you original image into lightroom and about five minutes made these changes. The enhanced color now brings your focus directly to the Blue Heron, instead of the background. Also added a bit of color to the tree. What do you think?

Digital1022 Loc: Holland, PA

Here is a lighroom post processing version of your version in flight. Blue Herons have great color, but rarely is the light right to bring them out. Again, about 5 minutes of work. LR or PS is a personal choice, but I think you will learn much faster using LR. I have gotten to the point that I only use PS when I have to do a major rehab of an image. Your on the right track, so keep it up. I will also tell you that the pictures are much better after processing on my machine than when downloaded into UHH. I have noticed this on a number of shots that others have posted. Just seems like they get washed out a bit in the download process.

Digital1022
johnwrupley.zenfolio.com

crazydaddio Loc: Toronto Ontario Canada

These look pretty sharp. At 500m and f6.3 and assuming you were at least 50ft away, you have almost 1ft DOF. Bird looks sharp all over to me. Your camera/lens/tele and shutter speed may be contributing more to any perceived lack of sharpness but to me, these are very good and zoomed in, I dont see any shake, just grain from the sensor. Well done ! (Did you use a tripod?what lens/body and what shutter speed? ....reason I ask is that I am guessing this is a Tamron or Sigma 150-600 which i own and always looking for some tips :-)

Ben's nana Loc: Chesterland, Ohio

Thanks for the compliments. I have a Nikon D750 and tamron 150-600. I did use tripod, worked well for the stills, but much harder to manipulate with following flight. I tried hand held but they were awful!

Thanks

Fran

Ben's nana Loc: Chesterland, Ohio

BEAUTIFUL!!!!! what did you do? Maybe I should do Lightroom first?

Fran

Bill_de Loc: US

Very nicely done.
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Ben's nana Loc: Chesterland, Ohio

First Hello from suburb of Cleveland ( I won't say anything about the Steelers)Yes I did shoot these raw. This is all fairly new to me so I'm still learning about post processing

Thanks

Fran

Annie-Get-Your-Gun Loc: Byron Center, Mi

I'd be very happy with these!

Ben's nana Loc: Chesterland, Ohio

Forgot to mention, that I changed the image size in the menu to DX. I read that it does'nt really change the focal length, but because of the crop factor the image appears larger. I think they called it "equivalent focal length"

Fran

Digital1022 Loc: Holland, PA

Fran
Like I said, I learned on PS, but the minute LR came into existence, I switched. Much more user friendly. PS is much more for graphic design and even though you can do a lot with photography in it, it generally takes longer and I don't think the results are better than LR. Once you are proficient in LR and PS, you might want to look at a suite of add-ons called Nik Software. Its now owned by Goggle and its free. Their Silver Fx is particularly useful if you shoot black and white. Really good tools.

As to what I did in LR, I adjusted the Highlight to its lowest setting and the Shadow slider to the max and then worked from there. That brings out the detail. I adjusted exposure and white balance just a tad. I adjusted the clarity slider to about 20 and then worked a little with exposure. One important thing is to find the White point and Black point. If you use a pc, you do that by holding the ALT button and click and hold on the white slider. You will get a white screen that may or may not have some color bleed through. The ideas is to take the slider in the direction that minimizes the bleed through. You do the same with the Black slider although I liked to have a little more bleed through on the screen. I also used the sharpness and detail sliders to get a crisper look to the photo. It's all personal choice in what you like. Hope this helps.

John

crazydaddio Loc: Toronto Ontario Canada

...hence my question on shutter speed :-)
I found anything under 1600 at 600mm handheld was a crapshoot. 250 shutter on a tripod was fine. 1600 at 6.3aperature means high ISO or a really well lit subject. If you are not getting good results handheld....it may be ss...

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

For birds in flight you need to use a Gimbal Head. There are very cheap ones if you can put up with their problems but a real good one at less money that the major brands is the Nest, sold by MT Shooter a member of the UHH. http://www.cameracottage.com/
Mine almost never comes off my heavy tripod and I often have one of my cameras on it with either my Tamron 150-600 or Canon 100-400L often with the 1.4x extender.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

Fran, I think you've done a great job on these. The detail seems good and the composition is right on!

piaffe_passage Loc: Westport, MA

Fran - They are all very beautiful!!