An "easy" BIF against a cloudless sky.

Shutter priority 1/2000, CF WIDE, EV +1.3, ISO Auto - 320, F4, FL 117mm JPEG FINE

It was quite a long way away so well cropped, to me it's sort of OK but, in your opinion, where could this be improved?

Both images, while sharp, lack fine plumage detail and in my opinion, that can only be remedied by getting closer. Easier said than done of course. The detail in the RX10's images allow quite a bit of cropping, but unfortunately the duck is just too far away.

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Panasonic FZ1000 FZ200 Sony RX10 iv

Rodger1943 said:

Both images, while sharp, lack fine plumage detail and in my opinion, that can only be remedied by getting closer. Easier said than done of course. The detail in the RX10's images allow quite a bit of cropping, but unfortunately the duck is just too far away.

Click to expand...

That's what I thought but a flying duck is a flying duck, and I'm on the ground! It just happened to fly over so I had a go!

cheddarman said:

Rodger1943 said:

Both images, while sharp, lack fine plumage detail and in my opinion, that can only be remedied by getting closer. Easier said than done of course. The detail in the RX10's images allow quite a bit of cropping, but unfortunately the duck is just too far away.

Click to expand...

That's what I thought but a flying duck is a flying duck, and I'm on the ground! It just happened to fly over so I had a go!

Click to expand...

Unless I am mistaken, according to the EXIF information you were only at around 300mm equivalent focal length (117 actual). Any reason for not zooming in fully? That certainly would have had the bird bigger in the frame.

Shooting anything that is so far away that only a tiny area of the sensor is used will never produce great results. Since you were zoomed to only 117mm, 316mm equiv ,better results could have been achieved by zooming to 220mm, 600mm equiv..

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Tom

Rodger1943 said:

Both images, while sharp, lack fine plumage detail and in my opinion, that can only be remedied by getting closer. Easier said than done of course. The detail in the RX10's images allow quite a bit of cropping, but unfortunately the duck is just too far away.

Click to expand...

I am quite sure that with a good raw processor you can get more details visible in the plumage (even in severe crops like this one). I have that experience using Capture One pro for Sony (version 12), but I am sure this would be possible with other raw processors too.

You can give it a try with Capture One Express, which is free to download for Sony users.

Ab S said:

Rodger1943 said:

Both images, while sharp, lack fine plumage detail and in my opinion, that can only be remedied by getting closer. Easier said than done of course. The detail in the RX10's images allow quite a bit of cropping, but unfortunately the duck is just too far away.

Click to expand...

I am quite sure that with a good raw processor you can get more details visible in the plumage (even in severe crops like this one). I have that experience using Capture One pro for Sony (version 12), but I am sure this would be possible with other raw processors too.

You can give it a try with Capture One Express, which is free to download for Sony users.

Click to expand...

Two examples of BOG images processed with Capture One. The first one original size (17 Mpixel - not 20 Mpixel due to distortion correct) and the second one a crop (3. 7 Mpixel) of the first one. At default settings in C1 almost no details of the plumage was visible. Enhancing "clarity" and "detail" sliders gave much more details with not too much artefacts.




Original 17 Mpixel




cropped 3.7 Mpixel

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Ab S

Ab S said:

Rodger1943 said:

Both images, while sharp, lack fine plumage detail and in my opinion, that can only be remedied by getting closer. Easier said than done of course. The detail in the RX10's images allow quite a bit of cropping, but unfortunately the duck is just too far away.

Click to expand...

I am quite sure that with a good raw processor you can get more details visible in the plumage (even in severe crops like this one). I have that experience using Capture One pro for Sony (version 12), but I am sure this would be possible with other raw processors too.

You can give it a try with Capture One Express, which is free to download for Sony users.

Click to expand...

While I have no doubt one could improve the quality of any image with PP (whether from RAW or JPG), the starting point remains critically important. I am going to use some real world numbers as example.

If you have a BIF image that covers say 250 x 600 pixels ON THE SUBJECT (close to the case with these images), you have an image covering a total of 150,000 pixels or 0.15MP. In looking at some BIF images that I like, I find that the bird itself typically covers something like 2,000 x 1,000 pixels, a total of 2 MP. Note that this latter image therefore contains around thirteen times the amount of data. There is just no way to make up for that difference in PP or RAW vs JPG.

Would be nice to see the original, unprocessed image to compare.

Offside said:

Would be nice to see the original, unprocessed image to compare.

Click to expand...

..sorry, I don't have the raw image anymore, but I remember quite well how it looked with the default settings in C1 and hom much it improved after enhancing 'details' and 'clarity' sliders in C1..

AlwynS said:

cheddarman said:

Rodger1943 said:

Both images, while sharp, lack fine plumage detail and in my opinion, that can only be remedied by getting closer. Easier said than done of course. The detail in the RX10's images allow quite a bit of cropping, but unfortunately the duck is just too far away.

Click to expand...

That's what I thought but a flying duck is a flying duck, and I'm on the ground! It just happened to fly over so I had a go!

Click to expand...

Unless I am mistaken, according to the EXIF information you were only at around 300mm equivalent focal length (117 actual). Any reason for not zooming in fully? That certainly would have had the bird bigger in the frame.

Click to expand...

I was sitting in my "hide" close to a Cherry tree photographing Goldfinches when the duck suddenly appeared and that's what the zoom was set to. Pressing the Focus Hold button to call up BIF settings didn't change the zoom, just all the other settings , so that's where it was!