Burrowing owls

[Grumpy Old Guy]

19. Topaz software

Canon EOS R5, 45 mp
Sigma 150-600mm zoom (I have a Canon RF 100-500mm on backorder)
Most of the images were manual exposure, 1/4000th, f/8, ISO 800 - 1200.

I don't have a teleconverter. Instead, I use Topaz SharpenAI as a plug-in for Photoshop. I do most of my processing with Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw and Topaz plug-ins.

Topaz SharpenAI sharpens images and reduce noise. It's not perfect, but it works great about 90% of the time. It enables me to do some extreme cropping. You can see that I really push the limits of cropping, especially on the birds in flight.

You can use Topaz as a plug-in or a stand alone program. They have a 30 day free trial, lifetime putchase and they upgrade it constantly. The only downsides are that it's incredibly slow and it's terrible for portraits.