Weathervane Critique

Since my mom is legally blind and couldn't see this weathervane from our car, I shot this and enlarged it so she could see it.

What I'd like to have critiqued is the overall effect--what is your first impression artistically? Is it pleasing or not pleasing? Would you change aperture to increase or decrease DOF? Would you crop differently (this is already cropped to 5x7 from the original). What changes would you suggest?

The EXIF data includes:

Nikon D90
aperture f/11
shutter 1/320 second
Circular Polarizer
ISO 200 (slowest regular ISO on D90)
122mm (used my Nikon 70-300mm 4.5-5.6 VR)
tripod mounted
Post processed in PSE 10 first then Lightroom 4 to reduce noise

I was amazed at Lightroom's ability to reduce noise compared with PSE 10. My preference will be to use Lightroom for noise reduction. I'm still new to editing with Lightroom so I chose to edit this as a jpeg. My D600 doesn't have the amount of noise that this D90 has so I'm glad to see Lightroom works so well.

Love the color - maybe a step left and the branches from the tree are out the roof and the brenches after will be a good frame for the photo too.

It's a nice shot. I was thinking about the branches as well, but I have a feeling that a little left and they start getting in the way, and it's even possible that at some point the right branches were clear and the wind moved them in on this particular shot. Regardless, I'm not bothered by them. If I was I'd also say you needed to get a little higher to avoid cutting off the bottom molding.

I'm a little curious about your using LR to "reduce noise" on an ISO 200 image. I wouldn't expect there to be much, if any noise, at that level (I shot with a D90 for months) unless it was introduced in post processing by some of the adjustments. When you get used to LR I think you'll find yourself doing the bulk of your adjustments there, including NR (which I tend to do right at the beginning, and occasionally again at the end with severe processing). And while LR's reduction sliders are wonderful, Nik's Dfine 2.0 blows them away. Just saying.

Thank you both for the comments. Yes Jake, perhaps if I had been able to take the photo without the branches touching the tower, it definitely would be an improvement! Good call, Jake and siamthai1!

I don't think I have any in camera noise reduction set--do you think it would help, and if so, which noise reduction setting as I believe there might be more than one? The noise was apparent in the shadows of the white tower as well as in the blue of the sky.

I hope it's okay to post these as they are part of the above image (one image per thread rule). They are just a close up of the same photo before and after processing.

Original unedited photo cropped at 100%.




And here it is for the final image cropped at 100%:

The only in-camera NR that I'm aware of is Long Exposure and High ISO related, and neither of these should apply here. I'm actually surprised at the level of noise from the D90 at ISO 200 that I see here, but seeing is believing. I always try and check monochromatic areas of photos for this regardless of ISO anyway because, as you've discovered, you never know.

Thanks for the info, Jake. Initially this is the camera I used for shooting the local high school theater productions @ISO 3200 (prior to getting a 70-200mm f/2.8 Sigma lens). I don't know if the high ISO affected the sensor's ability leaving it render more noise, but I do have one hot pixel that shows up at ISO 400 and above. I still have my 2nd D90 body as I haven't yet given it to my nephew so maybe I'll do some comparison shooting to see if the other body has the same level of noise.

To the mods, I appreciate Jake's info and perceive it as part of the critique. If the camera isn't supposed to show this much noise then I need to see about getting the camera repaired. If this is the normal level of noise for this sensor, then the info about Nik's Dfine 2.0 is helpful as an alternative method of noise reduction.

And my apologies for sidetracking, if not derailing, the critique train.

BackdoorHippie said:

And my apologies for sidetracking, if not derailing, the critique train.

Click to expand...

No apology necessary on my account. I appreciate your info and have found it immensely helpful!