[LRflex] Re: Black Level Comparisons and the Semi-Pro Blues

Hi Bob!

I can understand your frustrations at getting a good shot of the Red 
Wing Blackbirds.   They're fast, and they refuse to perch on anything 
stable! I lost an incredible number of shots, on Friday, just because 
they'd be in perfect focus, and by the time my brain told me to 
"fire" and I did, the wind had moved then 1 or 2 cm and the image was 
soft.  Very frustrating.  In the end, I took 90 shots ... and kept 
4!   I'd hate to pay the  bill, for that kind of work with film!

>I think it's time for me to look into capture and scanning gear that
>better represents what was presented to them.  'Meantime, I guess
>it's also time to get serious about researching noise-reduction
>software in order to save a number of my present shots.

I "develop", using Silkypix, to tiff files, and do any final 
tweaking, if needed, in PS.  I then use Neat Image to reduce noise 
and convert to jpg.  They have a freeware (Demo) version, which used 
to be fully functional, and without time limit, other than it would 
only save to jpg files.  If you wanted to save to another .tiff, you 
had to buy the "pro" version. (I did... not expensive.)  Don't know 
what their current plan is, but you can download the demo (still 
listed as freeware) at: http://www.neatimage.com/download.html  I 
find it fast, easy to use and very effective.

I do final resizing with either PS or FastStone Image Viewer.  If I 
have a lot to do, I use FastStone Image Resizer, although it does not 
do as good a job (more artifacts than PS, by far), it's great for 
quick and dirty jobs.  If I have to reduce, from say, 2400x3600 to 
600x400, I'll make an intermediate copy at 1800x1200 pixels.  The 
Resizer is so fast, that even with making an intermediate copy, and 
then reconverting that to the final size, I can process 500 files in 
about 4 minutes ... and the artifacts are much reduced by doing 
so.  I then, of course, block delete the mid-sized files. FastStone 
stuff is good, and free ... and can be found at http://www.faststone.org/

I'm surprised at the amount of noise you say you're getting in the 
20D... even at ISO 200.  I had good results up to ISO 400 with the 
20D and it seems good at ISO 800 with the 30D, although I'm trying to 
restrict myself to ISO 640.  Like Doug, I try to underexpose 1 stop 
(when using RAW) and then correct as necessary, during 
development.  This goes a long way to preventing blown highlights, 
and seems to help noise a wee bit, too.

As for your flare problem ... that's a tough one to solve, no matter 
what software you're using.  Good Luck!

Cheers!


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David Young,
Logan Lake, CANADA

Wildlife Photographs: http://www.telyt.com/
Personal Web-pages: http://www3.telus.net/~telyt
Stock Photography at: http://tinyurl.com/2amll4

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