Iceland: Horns O' Plenty

[Mike Buckley]

On the first day of my trip to Iceland, I was really wowed by the unusual opportunity to capture three sheep standing together, posted at Three wool manufacturers It wasn't until my last full day of the trip that I saw anything like that again, when I captured this image with (almost unbelievably) four sheep.

The foreground grass at the bottom of the image appears to be dramatically over sharpened. Actually, that's a moire effect showing up there that is not present when viewing the larger image in the Lightbox.

[Donald]

Super image. Works very well on all front, in my opinion. I think the idea of going in this close is good. Many of us may have gone fro a shot in which all, if nor most of the animals were in the frame, whereas you have really put attention onto their heads.

[Geoff F]

Yes, a nice group portrait.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, guys! I have to admit that I really have a strong affinity for tight framing, sometimes to a fault.

[Carl in Louisiana]

Looks like a meeting of the elders! Great shot and I do like a tight frame most of the time as it puts the focus on the main subject and for a much clearer view. Eyes going bad I guess.

[FrankMi]

Beautiful! Simply beautiful. With the manes flowing together, you might get better definition of the sheep if the sky was just a bit darker.

[Mike Buckley]

The idea never crossed my mind, Frank. I'll give it a try.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Mike,

I do see quite a bit of sharpened 4000iso noise at 100% in Lytebox.

If you're having another go and starting from the RAW, is it worth a bit of NR before sharpening?
It may solve that moire problem too.

Cheers,

[jeeperman]

Very nice image, I think you went in the perfect amount here. I look forward to seeing the adjusted image with the suggestions given.

[Mike Buckley]

Dave and Paul: I could rework the noise reduction (there is always room for improvement in every aspect of an image), but I don't have an issue with noise that a lot of people do and perhaps you too. I'm not suggesting that you have a "wrong" attitude about that, but I don't find the amount of noise in this image displeasing at all to me. I consider noise as a reasonable tradeoff for being able to use a 180mm focal length on a camera with a 1.5 crop factor at f/22 and a shutter at 1/400. Indeed, if I could improve just one thing about this image, it would be the lack of detail in the wool on the top of the sheep, not the noise.

As for solving the moire problem, based on everything that I have read, moire has nothing to do with sharpening or noise. Please let me know if I've got a misunderstanding about that.