I went up in the mountains east of my home today to see what was happening with spring migration and the smaller birds. This location is great for a large variety of birds, but this one is one of my favorites to see and photograph. I find them to just be so striking and this male was no exception.
Cropped a little for composition. Processed using DXO Pure RAW, a couple of minor LR tweeks, then off to PS for one quick adjustment and output from there.
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Is this a composite? No
Olympus EM1-X
300mm f/4 with 1.4x TC
1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 1000
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Kidding. But man, it probably took an age for you to get this good. So thanks for sharing. I have such a long way to go. But the fun is in getting there.
I Keith
I love the framing, of course the head turn, eye contact and great coloring, added a lot to that framing. Nice work.
Peter
Ps
How did you like the DXO Pure Raw?
Superb detail and I really like the exposure of the Tanager, Keith. There are a few around here, but I’ve never managed to catch one in this nice a setting. Excellent image.
I think it does a great job on most images. It is a huge time saver since it does the de-mosaic process, sharpening, and noise reduction and lens correction. Just like every product it has its’ place and there are times when it isn’t the right tool for the job. It’s not perfect but I find it much better than any of the Topaz products. I’ve never been fond of them as they are far too slow and I’ve found Denoise AI to be highly unpredictable in its’ results. Sometimes very good, sometimes just awful.
A really fine image Keith. I really like the pose, exposure, detail, and background. The light on the Tanager is perfect. Although Dennis says there are some around our area I have never seen one.
I’ve been fooling around with both DxO photo lab which uses the same de noise engine as DxO Pure Raw in combination with Topaz De noise AI. You are absolutely correct in that the Topaz product is unpredictable. What I do find is that by combining both products, I get better sharpening. When combining both products, what I am seeing is that the De noise engine from Topaz only applies 2% noise reduction but about 30% sharpening. My images seem to be cleaner.
It certainly worth a try. And there are times when I don’t need to Topaz product.
Lovely bird in gorgeous lighting and getting! Wish I could see a larger version to see how PureRaw handled the fine detail… In maybe 90% of the cases where I have tried it with a very sharp image with fine feathers, it gave hideous over-sharpening on fine feathers at 100% (with only the default adjustments from LR). But a few cases were OK, with no obvious reason for the difference. My experience with Topaz DeNoise AI (latest version) has been much better, often with the Low Light algorithm being the best and usually not needing tweaking of the sliders. On my Moonscape, posted earlier today, it did better then Topaz.
Great shot. I would not change a thing. On the subject of Western Tanager sighting, I’ve been getting very brief glimpses of a handsome male coming in to out suet block out back for a quick couple of pecks then it’s gone. First one I’ve seen here. I keep hoping to get a nice, sharp shot of the guy but it’s not going to be easy. Congrats on getting such a fine shot of one.
