A winter afternoon in the woods with Z6II and 500PF

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Marco74

Marco74

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Hi friends,
Yesterday I spent some hours in the woods after a long period of Covid restrictions.
The first week I can get out of the commune and obviously there is bad weather.
So rather than stay still indoors, I took a walk in the woods after doing housework with my wife. First, the duty and then the pleasure is said in my zone.
The photos aren't great, but it was a relaxing afternoon after a long time.
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Just before sunset...

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Rassie said:
Nice moody shots. It certainly shows the less than perfect weather.
Where did you take these?
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I made these photos near my city; I live in the north of Italy, south of Milan.
It was nice all week, but I was working, and I could not go out, then finally the weekend arrives and there is bad weather, and it rains.
The winter mood is also due to the timekeeper; it was almost evening. The two last photos are at 20.000 ISO 1/50" at 5.6.
I did not go lower with the times to avoid blur for the movements of the subject.

The hunting season has just ended, and the animals are still very scared and shy. I intend to take pictures in which they do not notice my presence and go on with their natural life. The best solution would be to stand in one spot and wait for them to pass.
Unfortunately, this solution is not simply because their range of action is vast, so even if I put myself in a passage area, it does not mean that they spend there that day. So for now, the best solution is to spot them with binoculars and try to anticipate their moves or approach very slowly every time they resume eating.
However, it is not my intention to get too close, I always use a long focal lens, and I am not interested in close-ups. Sometimes, they get too close or suddenly jump out of the woods as in the first photo.
 
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R.Philip said:
20,000 ISO. Great camera performance at that ISO.
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I have a bad feeling that the changes to the Z6II's sensor to reduce noise and banding were not all a good thing.
I shot several times with the Z6 in bad lighting conditions and got better results than these photos.
Maybe it's just a suggestion, but I'll investigate, I think it's important to understand the limits of the equipment to make the most of it.
 
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I've been very impressed with the noise performance of my Z6II with no reason to doubt the sensor's abilities.
Did you shoot these in NEF or Jpeg? What post processing did you do on the images?
 
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Rassie said:
I've been very impressed with the noise performance of my Z6II with no reason to doubt the sensor's abilities.
Did you shoot these in NEF or Jpeg? What post processing did you do on the images?
Click to expand...

I have read on the Internet and Dpreview that the series two sensors have been revised to have less noise and less banding at high ISO at the expense of sharpness.
I have the impression that this optimisation is not positive for my kind of photo because starting from a less engraved file, removing the background noise, the micro-detail disappears.

So, by feeling, I think it was better before.
I have recently had series two, but luckily I still have the Z6. In my spare time, I will make a comparison to see if I'm right or it's just a feeling.

I shot only in raw, but I don't like to spend time in front of a computer for heavy post-processing.
If I need to spend more than, 1, 2 minutes for a photo, or is a shot of life or it ends up directly in the trash.

I import and select the photos with Lightroom, make a fast adjustment with its adjustment panels.
Sometimes I start with an Auto Adjustment, but it is not the case because the histogram is completely unusable due to the low contrast atmosphere. If I use it, the photo will be overexposed with a lot of noise.

I adjust the photo thinking and try to respect the real atmosphere.
I apply a very low sharpening, a little more than the default value.
I apply the first noise reduction leaving a small percentage of noise.
I open the file in Photoshop and apply and automatic curve correction to bust the contrast and adjust it at my taste.
I use the Neat Image denoise program with the profile of Z6 because there is no series 2 profiles yet with the auto setting, adjust a little the slider if necessary, and my post-processing is finisced. I normally save in compressed Tiff for the archive. Reduce the size to 2400 px on the long side and save in Jpg for the web.

That's all.
 
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