A truly low light image

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bajadreamer

bajadreamer

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This picture of a Masked Trogon was taken at Sachamatia Lodge outside of Mindo, Ecuador. The lodge has a moth blind (a piece of white canvas stretched between two poles with light shining on it that stays on all night). Early in the morning (in just barely gray light) many birds come to eat the moths that have collected all night. This is one of those birds. This image was taken with a Canon R5, 600 mm II lens off a tripod. SS was 1/6 second (not a typo), f/5.6 (a mistake on my part-should have been f/4.0) and ISO of 10,000. Processed in DXO Pure Raw, edited in PS (small crop from L and bottom), a piece of wire was cloned out on L and the BG was brought down slightly. Finally it was run through Topaz DeNoise AI at Low Light settings. Would never have dreamed of this shot 5 years ago with my first 70D Canon camera. I debated removing the grapes on the L and the specular highlights but decided to leave it alone. Ideally this shot would have been taken with a 400 or 500 mm lens, but alas, do not have one.
Masked-Trogon-Sachamatia.jpg
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Wow. I would’ve never guessed that this was taken at those settings!

A stunning bird, the exposure looks great. I might desaturate the reds a little bit, some of the stomach has little to no detail. My only other “complaints” are the birds’s head angle, it would be nice to have more eye contact, but I understand that will a low SS, that’s hard to get another sharp shot. The vertical crop doesn’t work on this image for me.

Very nice image, thanks for sharing!
 
Fantastic result. Is that the EF 600? Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM Lens?
 
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BAL Land said:
Wow. I would’ve never guessed that this was taken at those settings!

A stunning bird, the exposure looks great. I might desaturate the reds a little bit, some of the stomach has little to no detail. My only other “complaints” are the birds’s head angle, it would be nice to have more eye contact, but I understand that will a low SS, that’s hard to get another sharp shot. The vertical crop doesn’t work on this image for me.

Very nice image, thanks for sharing!
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Thank you. I took this image in portrait mode as I was close-20' and I was expecting some long tailed birds to show up. I tried adding some canvas on the L so I could crop in a more horizontal aspect but it did not work at all. I did a square crop for Instagram, but that was truly "bird in a box". You are right about the SS-this was the best shot out of a burst of 70 shots.
 
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I would try an 8x10 crop...is that doesn't work, then I would simply crop to the image......a little off the bottom and more off the top. No rule says you have to fix a particular aspect ratio.

I feel that the image lacks a bit of contrast.....blacks to be specific on the bird.

Here is a very quick edit. Of course, I have no idea the brightness of your monitor (calibrated?), etc. Just food for thought... birghtened the bird .3 stop but added blacks, darkened background, cleaned up background, 8x10 crop................

Masked-Trogon-Sachamatia_Alt.jpg
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Butlerkid said:
I would try an 8x10 crop...is that doesn't work, then I would simply crop to the image......a little off the bottom and more off the top. No rule says you have to fix a particular aspect ratio.

I feel that the image lacks a bit of contrast.....blacks to be specific on the bird.

Here is a very quick edit. Of course, I have no idea the brightness of your monitor (calibrated?), etc. Just food for thought... birghtened the bird .3 stop but added blacks, darkened background, cleaned up background, 8x10 crop................

View attachment 54215
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Karen,
Thank you so much for your time and thoughts. Yes, I do like that better. I like the BG particularly. Did you apply those changes globally or did you mask?
 
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bajadreamer said:
Karen,
Thank you so much for your time and thoughts. Yes, I do like that better. I like the BG particularly. Did you apply those changes globally or did you mask?
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I just used ACR on an adjustment layer in PS. ACR makes masking the subject from the background pretty easy - best done on a raw image. In PS, I simply used content aware fill on a composite layer to do the background clean up.

FWIW - one of the very first steps I do when processing a raw image is to set a black point......
 
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Butlerkid said:
I just used ACR on an adjustment layer in PS. ACR makes masking the subject from the background pretty easy - best done on a raw image. In PS, I simply used content aware fill on a composite layer to do the background clean up.

FWIW - one of the very first steps I do when processing a raw image is to set a black point......
Click to expand...
Do you use Alt + black slider?
 
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tclune said:
What really impresses me is the quality at 1/6 second!
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Thank you. Yes, it was dark. The f/5.6 was a mistake; I could have saved some ISO there. Not sure that 1/12 of a second would have been any better than 1/6 though. This was the only image, from a burst of about 50, that was reasonably sharp. This type of bird, a trogan, often does sit quite still so that was a plus.
 
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I love the edit posted above, here is my very quick edit. Mainly just added contrast and brightness(I like a bright background if it’s not directing), and desaturated the red a little. I also played around with the crop.
1A173AD6-7BF4-4CD0-8285-6E80C138D9D2.jpeg
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Wow, I have to say, under the circumstances, amazing shot. I like the 8x10 crop with the bright background and the desat red belly. Thanks to all for providing the opportunity to see how that comes together without too much imagination required. I think its a testament to bajadreamer's skills/technique to nail any shot at 1/6 @ 600mm, and to the technologies (sensors and software) that allow an image like that. I can't imagine anyone doing much better. One question I have for the crowd is the fruit: do they add interest or distract? I suspect that, had the image been taken wider with more fruit, there would just be more of the 'bunch' included, and that makes it more distracting. I usually try, when I can, to keep the borders of an image clean, but in this case, personally, I think the few fruit hint at the environment and add interest.
 
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paulreinstein said:
Wow, I have to say, under the circumstances, amazing shot. I like the 8x10 crop with the bright background and the desat red belly. Thanks to all for providing the opportunity to see how that comes together without too much imagination required. I think its a testament to bajadreamer's skills/technique to nail any shot at 1/6 @ 600mm, and to the technologies (sensors and software) that allow an image like that. I can't imagine anyone doing much better. One question I have for the crowd is the fruit: do they add interest or distract? I suspect that, had the image been taken wider with more fruit, there would just be more of the 'bunch' included, and that makes it more distracting. I usually try, when I can, to keep the borders of an image clean, but in this case, personally, I think the few fruit hint at the environment and add interest.
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Thank you for the kind words. This shot was the best of a series of about 50 in a burst. I was expecting a bird with a much longer tail (a Motmot) to come; as a consequence I was shooting in portrait mode which limited my cropping and presentation options. This was shot from a blind that was looking at a moth feeder-a piece of canvas that was stretched between 2 poles with a light shining on it all night. The birds come to feed on the moths that come at night. I wish I had a shorter lens (a 400 f/4.0 would have been ideal) that would have given me more options but I did not. I agree with you about the grapes-they need to go.
 
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This is a fantastic shot (and I love the original; not sure why someone said it doesn't work as a vertical?). The smaller f5.6 aperture is actually better I think because the tail is already going out of focus due to depth of field. If you were at f4 the depth of field would be too shallow. Great job.

We have elegant trogon in the mountains south of Tucson (where I live) and it is amazing how similar they look. (My shots of them or nowhere near as good as this).
 
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MrFotoFool said:
This is a fantastic shot (and I love the original; not sure why someone said it doesn't work as a vertical?). The smaller f5.6 aperture is actually better I think because the tail is already going out of focus due to depth of field. If you were at f4 the depth of field would be too shallow. Great job.

We have elegant trogon in the mountains south of Tucson (where I live) and it is amazing how similar they look. (My shots of them or nowhere near as good as this).
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I have hunted for your Elegant Trogon in Portal and Madera Canyon many times without success. Yes, there are many species of these Trogons up and down the Americas and while they are similar, there are also significant differences.
You are correct about DOF and f/stop but one has to be careful about this. At this distance (about 20') the difference in DOF between f/4.0 and f/5.6 is a little over 1/4 of an inch. Is that enough to sacrifice a stop of light in ISO or SS? Each shot is different. I will admit, in this case, it was a mistake on my part. Probably not much difference between shooting at 1/6 of second vs 1/12 of a second, but probably would be difference between ISO 10K and ISO 5K.
 
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