Dark/Green backgrounds

[CJM2009]

Maybe I must post this question on the beginners forum...nevertheless:

I use a Nikon D700 and a 200-400 nikon lens, as well as the 70-200 lately.

1. I have difficulty taking photo's above ISO 1000 without a lot of noise on the background (birds). Is it normal on the D700? Must I up my post processing skills? (How?) I see other photograpers's photo's with much higher ISO's en beatifull clean pictures? What can I learn from them?

2. It seems that noise is particular more problematic against darker, but to me, particularly dark green backgrounds like tree foilage etc. I know dark backgrounds is more sensitive to noise, but what would be the way to handle such backgrounds when photographing birdlife?

Thanks
Johan

[Andrew Roos]

Is the exposure correct? You RGB histograms should be as far to the right as possible without clipping a channel. Any under-exposure will accentuate noise.

If the background is very dark compared to the subject then this can be a problem because you have to expose for the subject and then the background is underexposed. In this case what I do (using Bibble light but photoshop should be able to do the same) is to create a layer and mask out the subject (in your case, the bird) then apply quite aggressive noise reduction to what remains (i.e. the background excluding the bird). This avoids having to apply NR to the bird, which would spoil the texture. It will result in some loss of low-contrast detail in the background, but that's not usually a problem.

[CJM2009]

Thanks Andy - your reply helps. I started trying manual exposure for smaller birds (ss 3200 and smaller fstops) - that is OK on the bird, but definitely darkens the background - your explanation seems to on the spot there!

..and then I must start learning to use layers!