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The elusive wood duck

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Hatchdog
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by Hatchdog » Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:20 am

Wow, you went from the good to the bad and ugly in that series of pics. :lol:

Never seen a gator but would like to do so someday.
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BrokenolMarine
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by BrokenolMarine » Wed Feb 01, 2023 12:21 pm

One of our last trips to visit my folks in Fl before the move to OK, it was like the gators had taken over. We stayed in Destin and there were gators in the ditch on the outskirts of town. There were Gator Crossing signs, similar to Deer Crossing signs... where the roads would run between bodies of water. I made a joking comment to a shopkeeper and he said, "Oh, no, the signs are serious. We call them speedbumps here."

They have given new meaning to the "Water Hazard" on the golf courses.

water hazard.jpg
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clovishound
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by clovishound » Sat Mar 11, 2023 2:23 pm

Managed to get a few shots of some wood ducks at the Audubon Swamp this morning. Lighting was terrible and birds were too far away. As usual.

_DAB6717.jpg
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PJM
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by PJM » Sat Mar 11, 2023 3:05 pm

Few years ago I had woodie in my chimney. Thought it was squirrel. Opened up clean out in cellar and was surprised to find it. Was sooty but survived. Lucky the woodstove wasn't running. Let loose out the bulkhead and she flew off. Was told this is common as they look for a nesting site in spring.
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Hatchdog
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by Hatchdog » Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:43 am

The Woodies look great Clovis. I think the green surface on the water really helps highlight the colors on the ducks.
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clovishound
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by clovishound » Sun Mar 12, 2023 10:45 pm

Unfortunately, it's some pretty harsh lighting. Full sun, late morning. The only thing worse would have been directly overhead.

Still, better to get the shot under less than ideal conditions, than to go home empty handed.

I did get something today to help get more usable shots. I got the Topaz Labs bundle. It has software that will clean up noisy images taken in lower light. It also can sharpen slightly out of focus images. What I have seen so far is that sometimes it doesn't work well with an image, and sometimes it does amazing things.

This is one I shot last week that was underexposed and high ISO. It was very noisy, and the clouds looked terrible. I ran it through Denoise and it cleaned it up rather well. The cypress branches are rather busy, but I like the shape and details in the spread wings, and the counterpoint with the mate in the nest.

_DAB5817-DeNoiseAI-low-light-2.jpg
I used the Gigapixel program that came with it to clean up the picture of my grandfather. It does have a few unusual artifacts, but it does some amazing things with a very poor image.

The original:
grandpa2.jpg
And here's the same image after processing:
Keep in mind it also doubled the size of the image. I probably should have brought it down to the same size for a direct comparison, but didn't feel like taking the trouble.
grandpa2-gigapixel-very_compressed-scale-2_00x.jpg
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Hatchdog
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by Hatchdog » Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:18 am

^^^^^^^

Wow, that’s amazing. The difference in the siding above the logs in the cabin are wonderful as is the detail in his gunbelt.
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BrokenolMarine
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by BrokenolMarine » Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:46 am

I used to get some good pictures of the wildlife when kayaking. Great thing about kayak fishing, is they are so quiet ... If the fish aren't biting, you drift along and get great pictures. :D

I really like the colors and reflections in the turtle picture.

turtles sample.jpg


This Green Heron pic would make a great puzzle.


Briery Green Heron comp.jpg


These guys waiting for a bus? (All turtles, back of the line!)


waiting for the bus comp.jpg


I often got lucky, and the subject of the pics never even noticed until after the picture was taken.
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clovishound
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by clovishound » Mon Mar 13, 2023 11:51 am

Looks like you've got your ducks in a row!

I played around this morning with the new software. It's not the magic they make it seem like in the advertising, at least with pictures taken with a decent camera and lens, that need some extra sharpening or noise reduction. It does a better job of noise reduction than sharpening in my limited experience so far. A few pictures have greatly improved with it, and some just a little. I do need to learn more about playing around with a few of the options and sliders. It doesn't look too complicated, and their aren't that many options.

I took another wood duck picture from Sat and ran it through the different software programs. This was the result. Not an artistic image, but not too bad considering the amount of cropping and the lighting.
_DAB6716-DeNoiseAI-clear-gigapixel-low_res-scale-2_00x-cropped.jpg
And just for giggles and grins here's an Ibis from the same trip. It was full sun, but was able to get close enough to preserve good resolution.
_DAB6586.jpg
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clovishound
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Re: The elusive wood duck

Post by clovishound » Mon Mar 13, 2023 4:32 pm

And a couple more I salvaged with Gigapixel.

_DAB6672-gigapixel-art-scale-2_00x-cropped.jpg
_DAB6684-gigapixel-art-scale-2_00x-cropped.jpg
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