crisp wildlife shots question

[ryder]

It really helps if you get the focus perfect, but even when that happens, using the "unsharp mask" in post production helps a lot. I am using Gimp where you will find this under Filters>Enhance>Unsharp mask.

I generally just use the default settings from Gimp and it is enough without overdoing it.

As I understand things, most image editing software has an unsharp mask so you just need to find where they hide it.

I still don't understand why it is named that way!! It is very counter intuitive to use an "unsharp mask" to SHARPEN a photo!!!

[kirbinster]

One of the big advantages of shooting raw is that you have more lattitude to adjust exposure and white balance after the fact. That may not be an issue for studio shooting, but is a big issue for wild life where you are concentrating on catching the subject in an instant and may not have time to fine tune things as you shoot. I rather have a perfectly composed picture with the exposure slightly off than have a perfect exposure of an animal when half of it has already left the frame.

[ryder]

to try RAW, since I am seeing so much about this "extra control". I find that Gimp does a good job of adjusting White Balance in JPGs and even Paintshop Pro does white balance for JPGs, so I am unsure about the advantages until I try it out.