A panned gull.

[stepheno]

Spent a little time panning some gulls - would appreciate critique. Not too sharp, I know. 1/50 at f6.3 ISO200 on a Tamron 18-200 (fully open). I probably ought to have dropped back to about 175-180mm. TIA.

http://www.oboyle.plus.com/tpf/gull01.jpg

regards

[Steep]

I think if you can clone out the blurred gull above it will be a very very good image.

[stepheno]

I see what you mean - thanks Steep.

http://www.oboyle.plus.com/tpf/gull-01.jpg

regards

[SammyC]

Damn difficult things to photo, seem to move far quicker that you'd think.

From a technical point of view, and I'm only guessing that's what you're after, I'd say its over sharpened as there seems to be halos around its back. I've personally be done by this when sharpening and then using a sharpening size reduction in PS.

:)

[stepheno]

Nail, hit, head. I'll be more frugal with USM in future. Thanks mate.

regards

[Marcel]

Maybe try smart sharpen instead of USM?

[stepheno]

I'll try anything Marcel. :thumb:

regards

[SammyC]

I've found the threshhold sharpen technique outlined by Bachs a while ago (think there a tutorial) works very well as it allows you to edit the layer that does the sharpening.

You can then effectively sharpen the parts of the image you want to and leave the reast blurred.

[stepheno]

I must admit I haven't fully got my head round the parameters of sharpening yet - radius, threshold etc. Will have a look for Bachs tutorial - & thanks for the pointer.

regards

[dazzajl]

I don't think you could have used any less sharpening on that shot as I don't think it will be crisp enough to start with.

The speed of the bird, it's path across the camera and the shutter speed you have used make that one seriously ambitious shot. You would have got a perfefctly good panning look up as far as about a 200th looking at the amount of trail you have on the background.

You've got that one sooooo close, which is pretty bloody impresive from a techie point of view but I think it's one for the "damn, almost but not quite drawer".

[stepheno]

Appreciate the feedback Dazzajl - and I think your comments are spot on. I was on widest possible aperture for the lens and couldn't go for a faster shutter speed so....ambitious is right.

regards

[dazzajl]

....ambitious is right.

Which I'd like to say is no reason not to keep trying it in my book. As I said, that one is really close to being on the money and when you do get those low percentage shots not only do they look just brilliant but feel absolutley great too. :D

[DJW]

I've been watching too many cookery programmes with the missus.....I thought the title was some new exotic dish ;)