Anywhere i can upload Raw File to?

Went out this morning for a few test shots after the advice given about shooting birds.
Was shooting at 1600 iso, +0.7 ev with the Sigma 120-400mm @ 400mm.
Personally i think they all look god awful but im no expert at that focal range so i was hoping to upload a Raw DNG to somewhere so some of you guys can give me advice.
To me it seems my pictures are getting softer by the shot and the picture quality is degrading by the shot.
In all honesty there is no reason why it should look as bad as it does.
Tripod, SR OFF, extremely calm if a little overcast but nothing out the ordinary.

On a side note i looked at the LCD and my first thoughts when i zoomed them on the LCD were. "wow that should be a topper".

Craig you have a PM

BTW have you tried 0 and +0.3 EV as well as +0.7? Just for comparisons sake

Free file hosting service: http://www.savefile.com/

ISO 1600 is very high. You're always going to get lots of noise with that.

This is a very simple and fast file host, no-nonsense, no-adds,
no registration, no charges.

http://upload-drive.com/

You can't delete files from there, they will eventually
be deleted when the HD's are full. You could post a
password protected zip if your bothered about that.

shim

Pete beat me to it

shim

Ive uploaded the file to here http://upload-drive.com/22825/IMGP0896_DNG

Thanks

That's a good shot! I would be pleased with that under the circumstances.

If you want lower noise then you need a brighter day to enable a lower ISO setting. It will also help to get closer to the subject (or use an even longer lens) so you don't have to crop so much.

It's fairly sharp as well. For even sharper, maybe a steadier tripod would help, and/or an even faster shutter speed.

ps. I think you're making the mistake of expecting images to look perfect when viewed at 100%. That's expecting too much. The only problems are the not-bright-enough light and the subject being too small for the lens at that distance.

pps. Check out Silkypix Developer Studio for excellent RAW processing. It enables good compromise between sharpness and noise reduction. Silky by name, silky by nature.

Quick look - pretty excellent considering the conditions!

My initial thoughts:
1. High ISO has produced some noise. But I know Silkypix will do a good job of it.
2. There's limited DoF. You may want to do a focus check and adjust
3. Could be some motion blur in the bird. At 400mm and 1/400s it's likely that any movement in the bird will produce blur - my evidence is that the body features seem sharper than the head.

I'll run it through Silkypix/LR/PS and see what pops out...

Matt

WOW big file, straight out of the camera right?
The camera hardly compress DNG file so it's better to use Adobe DNG converter and let the computer do it, it's now a 14mb file and compare to 24mb that's quite a lot.
Also the camera compress PEF more so if you need to shoot a lot use that so that you can put more shots on a card and then convert them into DNG.

BUSY NOW
For ISO1600 it looks like a good photo though, you don't want to compare it with the K10D
Have done some things in lightroom, set the white balance coorrect and the exposure. It's now busy in photoshop removing the noise........ takes a long time....
Just doing some simple things now...
So finished
Not my best but you get an idea.

[IMG]http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk244/Anvh/IMGP0896.jpg[/IMG]

1:1 pixel (I find it a better name then 100% zoom/crop)
[IMG]http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk244/Anvh/Untitled-1-7.jpg[/IMG]

i think the noise levels are good, hope you dont mind just a quicky,
[IMG]http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/ww272/scottthehat/IMGP0896lpg.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/ww272/scottthehat/IMGP0896lpgc.jpg[/IMG]

also to me the peanuts behind are sharper, maybe a focus adjustment is needed,

I would agree with Scott there does seem to be a little back focus

@ Scott - What PP did you use m8?

Also i have to agree with you both on the Focus. I thought it was just me but i have noticed it in a few pictures.

to be honest i all i did was use the pentax software and saved it as a jpeg and then used ps elements,