Ed Ford, APSA  


Turul, Budapest by Ed Ford, APSA

August 2019 - Turul, Budapest

August 2019 - Ed Ford, APSA

Original

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




Adrian Binney   Adrian Binney
(Groups 72 & 91)
Hello Ed!
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
Ed Ford   Ed Ford
Hi Adrian - welcome to our group.

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



Albert Zabin   Albert Zabin
Good composition with the wings creating conflicting diagonal lines. It looks as if this bird is about fly. Probably a little more room above the sings would be good esp. if you ever want to mat or frame this   Posted: 08/06/2019 15:28:32



 
Ed, I could not get an idea of how big the bird is so I looked it up and see it is quite large. There were some examples and it must be hard to capture. I did see one with the sunrise behind it which was interesting. I really like the black sky and the way you captured the dynamic pose of the bird.   Posted: 08/07/2019 15:23:41



 
This is an interesting image Ed. If it were mine I would have probably tried to make the sky go completely black. This would have seemed to increased the contrast overall. It would be a very difficult shot to get.
Nice image.
  Posted: 08/12/2019 14:56:32



 
Ed,
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
Ed Ford   Ed Ford
Hi John - not 400 ISO, 400mm using the Tamron 18-400 lens. ISO was 2000. There was not much noise in the image as shot, but bringing up the shadows and some of my other work made the noise more of an issue. Topaz DeNoise AI did a very good job for me. I did want to make the sky darker but that left the statue shadows too dark - a balancing act. In retrospect a tripod and lower ISO would have made the image much better - not having a tripod with me …   Posted: 08/12/2019 17:06:37



Jack Florence Jr   Jack Florence Jr
(Groups 66 & 86)
I will concur with some of the other comments, in that this is an interesting image which might benefit from a bit more space, a bit less noise, and the sky going completely dark. Thanks for sharing, Ed.   Posted: 08/13/2019 20:53:11