Langford Lakes

All taken at Wiltshire Wildlife Trust's Langford Lakes reserve using a K20D with Sigma 100-300mm f/4 EX DG IF HSM.

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Reed Warbler 300mm f4.0 by Dr 'B ', on Flickr">[img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6202/6043055791_24b7cb2222_b.jpg" class="comment_image" />

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C&C welcome.

Jon

Forgot to add that all the original RAW files were developed in LR 3.41 with some additional sharpening (typically using a radius of 1.2 and an amount of between 35 and 45%) and heavily cropped before posting.

Jon

A beautiful set, love no.2.

Lovely set Jon. You must be thrilled to have bagged a kingfisher. He's a lovely young bird. It can be difficult to keep detail in the whites and you've done quite well there. Very nice variety with 2 classic poses and in between and attempt at something different. Given how much clutter there is around you've also done very well to seperate him from the background

Also very much like the 2nd reed warbler and the last wagtail is super(even though that one looks a bit soft).

A really nice set of photos. I've only seen a kingfisher once in my life so it's great to see photos of them.
I like the last wagtail too!

Very nice set !

#2 is my favourite but I do think you'e over-cropped these and if you add in the P.P. then the effect is a slightly unnatural looking re. the KF shots - almost painting-like actually. Sometimes a little less crop and some more of the environment is not a bad thing !

Full marks for getting images of this wonderful and tiny bird. This is something I have yet to achieve.

There are problems with sharpening and cropping here, as well as over-exposure on some areas. I would ease off the processing a little and try to maintain more natural colouring.

Hope to see some more soon!

Your C&C is incisive and much appreciated. I will definitely work at developing a more subtle and considered approach to editing .

Some of the perceived weaknesses in these shots,however, especially of the kingfisher, are a consequence, IMHO, of having to shoot hand-held at or near the lenses maximum aperture at 800 ASA.

Normally I find the luminance/colour noise produced by the K20D sensor at high ISO can be removed satisfactorily in LR or, following export to PSE, using the Noiseware Professional plug-in. In the case of the kingfisher however, I felt the need to crop the final image substantially because of its small size and distance from the hide when shot. Unfortunately, this made the 'down side' of the fairly aggressive noise reduction employed all too evident.

With regard to the exposure issues, I assume that you are referring to the shots of the wagtail, which included some very bright areas (water and stones on bank). I did try various exposure settings, but could not get a shot where detail in both the bird and highlights was retained: almost certainly, IMHO, because the dynamic range of the K20D's sensor was exceeded.

Perhaps the time has come to start saving for a K5

Best wishes,

Jon

Great set! Thank you for sharing!

This is a fantastic set of images. Looking forward to more in the future!