Anhinga Drying Off

[Phil Lanoue]

Anhinga from this past week drying off at the edge of the marsh.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v95/pal531/Anhinga/AnhingainBreedingColorDryingOff.jpg

Image shot as jpeg with minimal post processing.
Canon 7D with Canon 300 f4 with 1.4 extender attached.
1/800 6.3 ISO 200 shot in Manual mode.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Phil. I like the head detail, but am wondering why you are shooting jpegs? If a goal is to have proper exposure and detail from the darkest to lightest tonalities of an image, then this image falls short. Black back feathers are completely blocked; no detail at all. Although a big advantage of shooting RAW is an ability to coax detail out of dark areas of an image, in the RAW converter, in this case the dynamic range of the scene is beyond the dynamic range of digital sensors (way too much contrast between lights and darks). Only solution is to shoot under lower contrast light (cloudy or overcast for example) in which case the scene's entire dynamic range can be captured by the sensor. All black/white plumaged birds have this problem, and attempting to photograph them on bright sunny days is a bad idea. regards~Bill

[arash_hazeghi]

nice light and HA, but blacks have no detail. With proper exposure and processing you should get great details in both blacks and whites when the sun is low in the sky. it seems like you need to work on processing here.

TFS

[Phil Lanoue]

Hi Phil. I like the head detail, but am wondering why you are shooting jpegs? If a goal is to have proper exposure and detail from the darkest to lightest tonalities of an image, then this image falls short. Black back feathers are completely blocked; no detail at all. Although a big advantage of shooting RAW is an ability to coax detail out of dark areas of an image, in the RAW converter, in this case the dynamic range of the scene is beyond the dynamic range of digital sensors (way too much contrast between lights and darks). Only solution is to shoot under lower contrast light (cloudy or overcast for example) in which case the scene's entire dynamic range can be captured by the sensor. All black/white plumaged birds have this problem, and attempting to photograph them on bright sunny days is a bad idea. regards~Bill

Hey Bill, thanks very much for checking out this photo and I appreciate your thoughtful comments. Ah yes, why shoot jpegs? Well you are correct that shooting jpegs is not optimal for getting the best detail out of blacks (or whites) especially in a particularly tricky scene, RAW would indeed serve me better. B&W birds certainly can give me fits, I was shooting B-n Stilts the past couple of days and they are tough, as are Black Skimmers. Anyway, I used to shoot news and sports for a living and I continue that approach now when it comes to wildlife which in a way I shoot as 'bird sports'. This I do mainly to quickly get the photos and stories up on my wildlife photo blog. I average over 500 hits a day on that and have had views from 140 different countries. In general I'm an OK enough photographer but I'm not much of a computer graphics tech and I prefer to spend more time out in nature and less time at the screen. So I bang out the stuff quickly and will often try to get back out in the field later that same day especially if low tide in the salt marsh is in early evening when I get the best light out there.
Anhingas are one of my top all time favorite bird action to photograph. Please feel free to see many examples of anhingas including them doing their patented mid air fish flip here:http://phillanoue.com/anhingas/
Best,
Phil

[Phil Lanoue]

nice light and HA, but blacks have no detail. With proper exposure and processing you should get great details in both blacks and whites when the sun is low in the sky. it seems like you need to work on processing here.

TFS

Oh absolutely you are correct Arash and thanks very much for looking and commenting on this photo. It's true I'm not the best at post processing (see my response to Bill below for more info) I try to spend more time outside watching the wildlife and not so much on processing. For the past year and a half I have been mostly concentrating on updating my photo blog http://phillanoue.com every day and giving people from all over a glimpse into what happens out in our marsh area. For instance not too many people have ever seen a spoonbill and an alligator fishing together. http://phillanoue.com/2013/08/28/mr-grumpy-meets-his-match/
The other thing is that this anhinga photo does have a bit more detail in it but by the time Photobucket is done with it the image gets a bit muddied up. Oh well...
Best,
Phil