Somehow, I feel unchallenged.
A) Did not see the challenge.
B) Did not see the benchmark.
C) Did not see the goal/request detail.
You missed on all vital points of proper open fair challenge. All I see is bragging.
You also seem to be less than right on the conclusions. You are actually not right if you support your own case, dismissing other cases.
And so this way one doesn't want to even enter such challege, as it is for nothing. Maybe for birds pooing on chessboard.
Believe it or not, my M6 gives more informative/accurate luminance histogram compared to color channels histogram. Regarding ETTR, anyways...
Chess and pigeons.
"It's perfect!"
"It's bad."
"But I was going for bad, and I nailed it! So it's perfect!"
"umm.... okay...."
The hosting site went down. It is rare for it to do that and I expect it back soon.
You made curious choices about the exposure. Why such a fast shutter speed? Was f/4 a better choice than f/5.6, or even f/8, given the background? While we're talking about your "perfect" choices, why not focus on the bird's eye?
which part dont you understand ? convert the posted raw so that its better than the jpeg file out of camera. its simple , but obviously not so simple.
So, there have been a lot of posts here and I admit I may have missed it, but I don't remember seeing where you posted the raw file. Could you repost the link to it (or to the post where you originally put it, that would be fine too) along with the jpeg? I'll take a shot at it.
It was as simple as pressing "Auto" everything in ACR, and then cranking up Topaz AI and apply NR and "Enhance resolution" to a luminosity layer followed by a mask of the beak and lowering the opacity there so it was more pleasant to my eye.
Other than Iliah posting the embedded JPEG, we have not seen Donald's "unsurpassed" JPEG. What I saw in Iliah's post was soft detail, low contrast, and a tad warmer WB than what I would have used. Funny thing (to me) is that I hadn't even seen the embedded JPEG before doing the conversion, and then went back and cropped the embedded version to match mine side-by-side.
Tony, thanks for the pointer to the raw.
Working on it for a bit, here's about what I would do as a first cut. Where's the SOOC jpeg to compare it with again? Other than the embedded one that I saw before...
I'm not a pro at this, so aside from the ongoing debate, feedback is welcome. :-)
You didn't get the rules of Don's little game. He's not putting up the JPEG until everyone's had a go at the raw conversion. Then he'll declare that the JPEG is better than any. The JPEG will probably have been subjected to all kinds of manipulation, but that's within Don's rules. And it doesn't matter whether anyone else thinks it's better, because Don makes the rules - and he's already declared that it was a great shot.
You did a great job, but when i have to compare the images at 300% than thats a draw. I took my jpeg into ACR, applied a little texture and clarity. then PS tiny bit of sharpening. 1 min max working the jpeg. but your image kept a bit more texture in some feathers but you then lost some texture in other parts. good challenge image you posted.
test image. dont confuse the purpose of the post.
not even going to touch this image thats straight from camera.
Raw link. have fun processing.
I understand exactly how he operates and that is why I don't participate in his challenge games.
He has deliberately not told the truth on far too many occasions for me to take any he claims he makes to be true.
I didn't post anything that isn’t true :-)
Maybe it is sooc but it probably isn't with your track record of not telling the truth.
But if it is sooc, all that image does is provide further proof of my point #2 earlier.
"I have also posted on numerous occasions that with today's modern cameras and with a large enough supply of bananas you can train a monkey to take a nice looking sooc jpeg in good light. The raw file you posted was of a scene in good light."
Point #5 described a better test image but you have never posted one because it will clearly show the benefits of raw over sooc jpeg.
