Sandhill Crane Early Courtship with the 7D

[Arthur Morris]

This image was created two days after the end of this year's Bosque IPT with the handheld 400mm f/4 IS DO lens and the EOS-7D. ISO: whaddya think??? Evaluative metering plus 3 stops off the white sky: 1/500 sec. at f/4.

These two stayed on a bit after most of the cranes had flown off the the unknown farm fields....

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Artie, I like the placement of the birds in the frame. Nice interaction with good detail and exposure. I especially like the display of the bird on our right. Oh and thanks for sharing your metering method.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Phil. I forgot to mention that this was a pretty healthy crop off the right. The bird with its wings raised was pretty much in the middle.

[denise ippolito]

Artie, I like the high key look to this and as Phil mentioned the placement of the birds in the frame. Details in the wings look great. I could not even hope to get the ISO correct but I'll guess 1600. I'm sure I'm wrong. I have never even shot anything w/ a plus 3.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Veery nice scene and poses, good crop Artie and nice mood here. I wouldn't know the ISO but AI know that the 7D work preety well with very high ISOs when shooting with the 10 megapixeles MRAW so I wuodl just guess... ISO 3200?

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, I like the high key look to this and as Phil mentioned the placement of the birds in the frame. Details in the wings look great. I could not even hope to get the ISO correct but I'll guess 1600. I'm sure I'm wrong. I have never even shot anything w/ a plus 3.

Hint: Ramon and Denise have the ISO pretty much surrounded; only two choices left. Pretty good.

Denise, do you have a MIII? (It was +3 off the white sky which was probably +2 or +2 1/3 off of the image as framed.)

[denise ippolito]

Artie, I have a 40D and a 5D. I want a Mlll:)

[Harshad Barve]

Guruji
nice pose by birds and high key effect works very well here , few more learning tips here :)
TFS

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, I have a 40D and a 5D. I want a Mlll:)

MIII bodies will be cheap soon...

[Ben Egbert]

Great shot. Always hard for me to judge image quality at such small sizes, but it looks good. After struggling to process some 1DS-mk3 eagle shots at ISO1600, I would like to hear how you did these.

[Arthur Morris]

Great shot. Always hard for me to judge image quality at such small sizes, but it looks good. After struggling to process some 1DS-mk3 eagle shots at ISO1600, I would like to hear how you did these.

Thank you sir. This was created at ISO 2500 (as I was hoping to make some sharp handheld flight images).

The key to reducing noise at any ISO with any camera is to expose to the right as I did here. I did nothing for noise with this image in post.

[Ben Egbert]

Thank you sir. This was created at ISO 2500 (as I was hoping to make some sharp handheld flight images).

The key to reducing noise at any ISO with any camera is to expose to the right as I did here. I did nothing for noise with this image in post.

After reading this, and knowing my shots were exactly at the right, I tried processing without NR. After reducing to 1024 wide, it is very hard to see any difference between the NR and non NR versions. No problem at 100% however where noise is pretty easy to see. I had to forego all but output sharpening on the ones without NR. Mine was also a pretty heavy crop.

Thanks for another lesson.

[Ed Cordes]

I'm a little late to this thread, but I am not surprised by the high ISO. I find with well exposed images high ISO works pretty well in my 7D. RE the image, I like the interaction and the high key effect. I can't help but wonder if he is "flashing" her! LOL

[Jay Gould]

Artie, are we hearing that the courtship is going well and that there is going to be a marriage with the 7D leaving the 50D at the starting gate?

[Krijn Trimbos]

Hi Artie,
I really like the interaction in this shot. Although I am usually not a big fan of high key, the high key water makes for a nice BG even from the higher angle you were shooting. Good colours and exp perfect.

[Mark Theriot]

MIII bodies will be cheap soon...
;) :D Ah hand-me-downs . . . gotta love em!!!

[Bonnie Block]

Very nice, Artie. Love his flashing glance to her. :)
Good work on getting two cranes isolated! I tried--but never quite got what I wanted!!;)

[DarrenMcKenna]

Nice interaction, I think both birds look rather soft, probably due to the dull light. Also I have to ask why the need to put "photo with 7D" or any camera for that matter in the title?




darrenmckenna.com (http://www.darrenmckenna.com/)

[Arthur Morris]

No need. Many folks are interested in the 7D so doing so makes things easier for them. Next week I am hoping that it will be MIV image...

[Kiran Poonacha]

Loved the image, the setting looks great and great pose to, I shoot as a hobby, I am fully confused now. 7D, used MK III or Beg borrow steal for MK4. Advice me guru pls.

[Jim Fenton]

OK....you asked....

The DR range looks rather low, contrast / color saturation looks low, it looks like a heavy crop and it doesn't appear sharp.

It looks rather good noise wise for 2500 but there are no luminosity value areas to see the noise against.

[Arthur Morris]

Loved the image, the setting looks great and great pose to, I shoot as a hobby, I am fully confused now. 7D, used MK III or Beg borrow steal for MK4. Advice me guru pls.

Don't forget the 50D.... I do not have enough experience with either the 7D or the MIV to answer that question. And then there is always the question, what will you be doing with your images. And everyone needs to realize that good photographers make good images with whatever camera they are holding.

Lastly, do you need a video DSLR? What do you know about the process of capturing video? It is much more involved than most folks realize. There is a good to great deal additional expense and skill needed for in-the-field capture and the post-processing is a whole 'nother ball game. Can you say Final Cut Pro???

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Jim,
re:

OK....you asked....

Yes sir, as always.

The DR range looks rather low

Agree.

Contrast / color saturation looks low,

Agree.

It looks like a heavy crop.

I would not define it as a heavy crop. I will post the original frame below.

And it doesn't appear sharp.

Agree to some degree.

It looks rather good noise wise for 2500 but there are no luminosity value areas to see the noise against.

I do not know what "luminosity value areas" are. Please explain.

The image in the original pane was prepared from an extracted JPEG as at the time I did not have access to DPP. I have now installed DPP and thanks to your honest comments I watched the DPP tutorial on the Canon Digital Learning Center web site and reprocessed the image from scratch. (Canon folks will find the tutorials here: http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=1228&fromTips=1

The tutorials are based on DPP 3.2. DPP 3.7.1.1 comes with the 7D so there are some confusing parts but I was able to get through them based on the DPP Help section.

Above is the JPEG created by my usual action from the re-done file. I would appreciate your comments in comparison to the originally posted image.

[Brian Barcelos]

Re post is an improvement, the birds have a more 3 dimensional look to them and more detailed. The one on the right reminds me of my Grandfather who always talked with exaggerated hand gestures.:) Congrats

[Jim Fenton]

Artie...

Repost looks....different :)

While it appears sharper, I think it may be due to the increased contrast which now may be just a bit on the harsh side. I knowe...I go from one observational extreme to the other.

The reds are more saturated in the head caps and you can see that red saturation overall has been increased by the fact that the faint splotches in the left birds wing / shoulder area are now more visible and defined.

By "lower luminosity value areas" I meant those areas at or approaching shadow areas on the scale.

Hard to judge noise characteristics as much of the image is at or above the center of the histogram, with the exception of the darker wing details which aren't big enough for my eyes to judge by.

Overall, it does present better than the original but still certainly not an image which I think one could do a whole lot with other than display on the web simply as a reference example.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Thank you for your advice guruji, your words sure comfort me. I am happy with my setup, just wanted to upgrade as my 40D is getting old.

Thanks again guru, Have a great weekend.

Kiran

[Arthur Morris]

AOverall, it does present better than the original but still certainly not an image which I think one could do a whole lot with other than display on the web simply as a reference example.

The TIFF looks a whole lot better. I am not alone in having trouble specifically with 7D JPEGs....

I will let you know if it passes the pen test.