Ed Ford, APSA
About the Image(s)
I chose this image to create an art like image and not a story this month, an effort to create an ethereal appearance. It is the statue of the Turul in Budapest, Hungary. I was fascinated by the appearance of the statue lit up at night and was using a high ISO hand at 400mm held to capture it. The lighting naturally gave the bronze statue a ghostly appearance and I tried to enhance that with my processing while trying to minimize the noise. I will be interested in the comments as to how well I succeeded. Since the sky was so dark, and there was only one color (monochrome) in the statue I thought about simply submitting the original by making the sky black - the group’s thoughts?
Also, my apologies for not commenting on images last month.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
8 comments posted
(Groups 72 & 91)
I like the concept here and there is no doubt that it is stronger in B&W.The wings make a striking pose.
But my eyes get lost in the neck/body area, which is in shadow and doesn't appear to be as sharp as the bottom area.
  Posted: 08/06/2019 12:31:44
Thank you for the comment. I agree with your assessment. However if I brought out the shadows of the neck area in order to address the issue, then I was dealing with a lot of noise. As it was I had to use Topaz DeNoise AI in order to get the noise to "film grain" level. It was, so to speak, a balancing act - a balance between negative space and revealing details in order to get what I believe to be best average condition for the overall image.
Thank you again for your comment, it was well taken.   Posted: 08/06/2019 17:23:00
Nice image.
  Posted: 08/12/2019 14:56:32
Definitely an impressive eagle and I think you chose a good angle to give three dimensionality to the image. I am wondering if a portrait orientation would have allowed you to include more of the pillar on which it is "perched"? For me I would have liked more contrast with a darker sky which I think would make the eagle stand out more. I have also been using Topaz denoise and find that it does an amazing job even at 3200 ISO so I am surprised that there is still noise in your image if it was taken at 400 ISO.
  Posted: 08/12/2019 16:13:34
(Groups 66 & 86)