My Major Problem

[Bill McCrystyn]

20d 100-400l is @ ISO400 F/13 1/1250 EV. H/H

Fabs and Alfred have both told me I need to comp to avoid the "Black Wing" syndrome. I obviously didn't do it on these and payed the penalty. Just how much should I have comped and in what direction to avoid what we see? Any other suggestions welcome. SECOND SHOT BELOW -

[Bill McCrystyn]

second shot same problem / same techs as above

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Did you dial in positive exposure compensation? You probably would have needed +1 or even a bit more. f/8 would have helped to keep the shutter speed up. You also need to clean your sensor. :)

[Alfred Forns]

HI Bill Axel is correct You need to post the exposure compensation used.

From the looks of it it is under exposed. As Axel pointed out you need at least one stop more from meter reading because you are shooting the shaded side of the bird.

One thing to keep in mind. As you need more compensation under the wings you will start burning the top side of the head which is in full sun !!! Solution.... work in softer light. Another is to shoot at the the beach. The sand will act as a giant reflector and bounce light into the bird.

Another couple of things. You might want to try cleaning the sensors it is easy to do and will cut the time in dust spotting. Also need to have the bird much larger in frame. If you crop the resulting image will not have the best of quality. I have lots of those birds with a short and medium tele lens.

[Harold Davis]

may i recommend the lens pens!! lol. i thought mine used to get dirty!! wow. you can buy them by clicking the orange banner at the top right of the screen!! they are cheap and they work. good info from al and axel!! you gotta get closer!! good luck.

[Bill McCrystyn]

So I need to move from a Canon EFL 640 to a NIkon EFL 1020mm. Dial in at least +1stop or more with a larger f/stop to help keep shutter speed up, move out of Arkansas to a beach state and break down and clean my sensors :) After that I can deal with the burn on the top side and whites in Photoshop. In other words - don't bother to shoot these, they rarely if ever come out. I thought maybe there was a magic bullet. I'll try one or two stops and see what happens. Thanks guys

[Judd Patterson]

Like the others have said, Bill, your biggest problem here is the dirty sensor. That is pretty extreme and might take several attempts to clean properly. I try to be really careful to change lenses out of the wind and to do it very quickly...that can be hard to do in some circumstances! Good luck!

[Bill McCrystyn]

Thanks Judd. The Canon 1-4 has the propensity to collect a little more dust than other lenses because of the push-pull action and the resultant static build up. I was in a hurry to get out on the lake and skipped a session so it was a little worse than usual. Sorry, didn't mean to shock anyone. I don't think however that it would affect the under exposure and after I clean it up I will take Axel's and Al's advice on compensation to try and correct the problem. You may want to look at the wing spread post "Fresh Catfish" on AWF to see the sky on these shots after correction with CS3. Both were posted there.

Oh, and yes I do use the lens pen when I clean along with EZ wipes from B&H. :)