Phainopepla

[WillieHall]

Out yesterday in the lower Sierra foothills, felt like spring. This Phainopepla was feeding in leafless oaks, so was great opportunity to frame as I wanted. Afternoon light, handheld with Canon 7D 100-400 L, Manual,JPG, f/7.1, 1/2500, ISO 800, 360 mm, metering-pattern (I was hoping he would fly and like the pattern metering for flight). How could I better handled the blacks on this difficult bird. Looking forward to comments.....thanks. I do have some RAW of this bird and will be my first chance to learn how to handle it :eek3:.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Iridescence is wonderful on the upper portions of the bird... nice posture, red eye and crest display too. Being rather harsh light, have lost some detail in the lower half...WDYT about a vertical here? Stick/perch might be a bit too much horizontal. Would LOVE to see one of these someday!

[Diane Miller]

Nice shot! I assume it's close to full frame -- if so good job getting close. But there is quite a bit of noise in the sky -- was it underexposed? Something to be avoided with any camera and, from the consensus here, especially with the 7D.

For a JPEG this isn't bad, but you can bring out a lot more detail in the shadows (essentially lowering the contrast, but not in a simple way) by proper processing of a RAW file.

What RAW processor do you have? I strongly recommend Lightroom.

[David Kenny]

I think for afternoon light you did a great job with the blacks. I found that shooting black birds on overcast days worked better for me Maybe a little flash would of helped to bring out more detail in the dark feathers but on the other hand it also might of scared him off. I agree with sandy about the vertical comp. I think it would have worked well here.

[WillieHall]

Sandy, I am going to try a vertical with it, it did bug me a little about the long horizontal perch. I might gain some of the detail from my RAW images, if I can figure out how to do it.
Diane, I just bought Art's tutorial on DPP, as I have been frustrated with Elements 12. I may try the free trial with Lightroom if I don't like. This is going to be a steep learning curve!!!

[Diane Miller]

It's a journey but so worth it! Keep us posted!

Forgive me if I can't (or don't!) remember from one post to the next what anybody is using for processing. I think I have adult-onset attention deficit disorder or something.

[Ian Cassell]

Hi Willie,

This is a beautiful bird and I have only seen a few of them. I think this one would work better as a vertical (it looks a bit too centered here on the horizontal). It would be nice if you could get a bit more detail on the face, but I'm not sure how to get that.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice pic, Willie! I would have cropped the bird a little to the left so it's perceived to be looking into more space on the right. You may try and raise the shadows a bit to see if you can tweak it at least until you pick up feather seperation in its tail.

[WillieHall]

good suggestion on the shadows Tobie, I will try that. Your crop idea is similar to the suggestions above about a vertical crop and I see it works better. thanks

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi, nice image with good detail. Most points have been covered already, I dont think the square crop is working here, a vertical will be better as it will cut the dead space behind the bird. Well done and TFS.

[Iain Barker]

Hi Willie

This is a nice bird that I have not seen before. I too find getting the exposure right to show all the detail in the shadows hard. One thing you can do is expose to the right of the histogram but make sure you don't go to far by having the highlight warning on. You can then bring the exposure down in your raw editor and keep some detail in the shadows.

TFS
Iain

[WillieHall]

Thanks all, I changed the crop to vertical and tried to adjust shadows ( as much as you can with a jpeg in iPhoto). I am starting to shoot RAW and learn processing....exciting but steep curve.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice, Willie!

[Iain Barker]

Hi Willie

I like the crop in your repost but it the changes have introduced quite a bit of noise. Shooting in raw as already suggested will help you to make these adjustments better. On the repost there is also some chromatic aberration (CA) around the edges of the bird. I think it was there on the original now I look again but it is more noticeable on the repost. This can also be fixed on a raw convertor but I am not sure if it can be on a jpeg?
I think that using RAW instead jpeg your images will take a big step up. The learning curve should be to high as you are already trying to make the adjustments that working in RAW will allow you to do.

Iain

[Randall Farhy]

Hi Willie- I too like the vertical for this one. In addition to everything already mentioned (you guys did a great job!) I would add that the 7D is notorious for blue sky noise (blue channel) AND metering to the dark side by about 1/3 of a stop on neutral grey cards. With that in mind, ETTL (expose to the left) would've helped you here in several ways. It would've exposed the shadow areas more properly and would've helped reduce the overall noise present here. Overexposing slightly then "bringing it back" in PP on RAW files gives you a good amount of range. The curve is steep but well worth the time spent working with it. Also, you might consider masking the bird and applying additional noise reduction to the BG in situations like this one. Looking forward to seeing more!

[Diane Miller]

Yes, I like the new crop, too. I think Randall meant ETTR above -- expose to move the histogram to the right (overexposed, within limits). (So many acronyms -- ETTL is auto exposure for flash.)

Learning raw processing isn't that difficult and often saves the need to go into PS.

[Randall Farhy]

Diane, correct again thanks for catching that. I don't know why my brain insists on getting those two mixed up, especially since I'm visualizing the histogram when I write about the subject. I guess failing fire drills in high school was a sign of things to come.

[Diane Miller]

It's a big club -- don't feel special. Something about creativity, I think. At least, that's MY excuse. :S3:

[WillieHall]

thanks, everyone. I have learned so much from this photo. It is a special bird to me (beautiful, quiet call) I have been trying to get a good image of for 6 months...many hours invested but all fun and learning. I see I cropped it a little tighter when I went to vertical and brought out some bad highlights. I think there is a fine balance of too close a crop and just a little backing off, I will do a final adjustment of this image by reducing crop and shadow adjustment a little.....spring is here in CA.