RAW Conversion with 150-500.

Two from yesterday, my first serious attempts at RAW canversion.

First, A Great Crested Grebe, K7, 150-500, handheld, about 12 foot away.
Lens OS on, K7 SR off.
Iso 400, 1/400th. @ f7.1. F = 440mm.


[IMG]http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af340/rogerhlane/GCGchicksWREN049.jpg[/IMG]


And a wren, K7 & Sigma, monopod, about 40 foot away, quite a big crop.
Settings as above but 1/320th. @ f8.


[IMG]http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af340/rogerhlane/GCGchicksWREN028crop.jpg[/IMG]

Any C&C re improvement over straight jpegs previously posted or advice on conversion technique most welcome!


Roger.

Personally I sit in RAW edit for a long while, just playing about. I do click on the Auto settings to start with, both image and WB but then play with everything to see what works best. I even open Jpegs in RAW too but with the reduction in resolution to start they can turn out a bit iffy. I do save the cropping until I am in photoshop though.

As for the photo's don't be afraid of a shallower DOF as increasing the appeture allows a faster shutter speed, and can result in a sharper close up at distance. With nice bokeh in the background.


this was about 15-20 ft away

Taken with my K-x
Format was RAW+
F/5.6
1/1600th
ISO 200
focal length 90mm
link

saved before crop as a Tiff and after as jpeg resolution 240ppi

Hope some of this makes sense but all the images I took on my birds of prey day were wide appeture and fast shutter even the macros. link to the shots took below.

link
link

hope some of this helps

Are these massive crops? You should be getting sharper
pics with the 150-500mm. Loss of sharpness can be through
camera shake or not quite nailing the focus.

The processing looks OK.... maybe they could be sharpened
a bit.

I'm still not convinced Roger. I know you take good pictures. I've seen them taken with your other lenses.

I shoot RAW but don't see that it should make any difference to the final image on these except perhaps to the blown whites on the grebes head may have been worse if shot in jpeg.

Its a pity we live so far apart. I'd be really interested to have a go with yours and for you to have a go with mine. You need to compare your lens with someone who has one close by. There must be someone. Ask on here.

Good luck mate

1/400th sec at 440mm (equiv to 660mm in 35mm format) is probably pushing your luck handheld with shake reduction off. At least, it would be for me!

Roger is there anywhere you could post the original files so we can have a play?

Thanks, all.

WPC, the lens os was "on", the K7 sr was "off".

Alan, I've arranged a meet with brianfromwilts, who is local.

Mike, the wren image was, it turns out, a jpeg.
I must have changed to RAW halfway through the shoot.
The grebe image, below, is a non-processed jpeg from the raw file.




[IMG]http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af340/rogerhlane/GCGchicksWREN028.jpg[/IMG]





[IMG]http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af340/rogerhlane/GCGchicksWREN049raw.jpg[/IMG]


Please feel free to do with these as you will!

I'll be interested to see results/further comments.

I think your Wren shot is a bit ambitious as the original is rather small. The Grebe shot could be improved with PP though i think.

I am only able to download very small (118k) pictures so can't really do anything with them. Considering the range I don't think the wren is too bad and I'm sure both could be made better if we had access to the full size files.

Grebes are sometimes soft because of all the water on their
feathers and the beak isn't always in focus.

Mike, any advice for uploading bigger files, please?

roger.

Open a dropbox account, it's free and handy for this sort of thing

Sorry to be a pain, Mike......

I've downloaded Dropbox & the two files are on there.

I can't work out how to either copy them to here or to you/your e-mail.....????


R.

The Public folder lets you easily share single files in your Dropbox. Any file you put in this folder gets its own Internet link that you can share with others -- even non-Dropbox users!

Step 1: Drop a file into the Public folder.

Step 2: Right-click this file, then choose Dropbox > Copy Public Link. This copies an Internet link to your file that you can paste anywhere: emails, instant messages, blogs, etc.

That's it! To share your file, just send the link to a friend.

Ta-Daaa!





http://dl.dropbox.com/u/81654024/GCG%20chicks%20WREN%20028.JPG



http://dl.dropbox.com/u/81654024/GCG%20chicks%20WREN%20028.JPG

R.

Is that it???