Tricolored Ballet - Act 2

[Jose Suro]

Hi All,

This is the second image in the Tricolored Heron Ballet set from last week. This image was captured a few minutes before Act 1 and therefore has slightly less golden light because the Sun was just a little higher in the sky. Larger image can be seen here:

http://www.josesuro.com/gallery/2791675_CDW4o#400338654_QpkiK-O-LB

Thanks for looking.

Best,

Jose

D300 - 200~400 + 1.4xTC - 1/2500 @ F5.6 - ISO 400 - Daylight WB - Manual exposure @ -1.3 stops.

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp, wonderful running pose, and well-framed but the image has many fatal problems. Not sure how much room you had with the whites but -1.3 in soft light seems way too much even for the D-300. Both the dark tones and the middle tones are grossly underexpose and blocked up. And the head, whic is turned away from you, is totally lost in the black BKGR.

What do you use to convert your RAW images?

[Charles Glatzer]

Jose,

You mention manual exposure, but not the method (pattern in use and what you specifically metered) to obtain exposure. It is therefore difficult for me to determine if your applied compensation is correct as stated. Make sense? Fill me in and I can help. I assume you used Eval and it took the overall dark foreground/background into account when providing a recommendation, thus the need to apply 1.3 minus comp to not clip the highlights. Seeing the original would help determine the best course of post-production.

I think the image has a lot of potential.

Best,

Chas

[Jose Suro]

Sharp, wonderful running pose, and well-framed but the image has many fatal problems. Not sure how much room you had with the whites but -1.3 in soft light seems way too much even for the D-300. Both the dark tones and the middle tones are grossly underexpose and blocked up. And the head, whic is turned away from you, is totally lost in the black BKGR.

What do you use to convert your RAW images?

Hi Artie!

Thanks so much for the comments, they are most welcome as an opening for me to express my thoughts. This was the year I finally decided to abandon convention, stop following the herd, and chart my own course. As such, the image is not an illustration, but rather an interpretation. It is a intimate view into my mind's eye and as such it reflects what I wanted to remember and how I wanted to convey the instant to my audience. Nevertheless, there is no PS in this image, except for some slight burning-in here and there. One my my maxims is to try to create everything in-camera. The -1.3 stop exposure was spot metered on the whites, and yes, that was the light. In essence, I wanted the bird and the blue ripples, nothing else. As for the head being turned away from the camera - have you ever tried to chase a fish, running at full gallop while looking sideways :)?

Thanks again!

Jose

Ps. OOPS! Forgot to answer - I use Capture NX2 for my RAW conversions.

[Jose Suro]

Jose,

You mention manual exposure, but not the method (pattern in use and what you specifically metered) to obtain exposure. It is therefore difficult for me to determine if your applied compensation is correct as stated. Make sense? Fill me in and I can help. I assume you used Eval and it took the overall dark foreground/background into account when providing a recommendation, thus the need to apply 1.3 minus comp to not clip the highlights. Seeing the original would help determine the best course of post-production.

I think the image has a lot of potential.

Best,

Chas

Hi Chas,

Thanks for the comments! The exposure was spot metered on the whites. And it came out exactly as I had envisioned it in my mind.

Thanks again!

Jose

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Artie! Thanks so much for the comments, they are most welcome as an opening for me to express my thoughts. This was the year I finally decided to abandon convention, stop following the herd, and chart my own course. As such, the image is not an illustration, but rather an interpretation. It is a intimate view into my mind's eye and as such it reflects what I wanted to remember and how I wanted to convey the instant to my audience. Nevertheless, there is no PS in this image, except for some slight burning-in here and there. One my my maxims is to try to create everything in-camera. The -1.3 stop exposure was spot metered on the whites, and yes, that was the light. In essence, I wanted the bird and the blue ripples, nothing else. As for the head being turned away from the camera - have you ever tried to chase a fish, running at full gallop while looking sideways :)? Thanks again! Jose Ps. OOPS! Forgot to answer - I use Capture NX2 for my RAW conversions.

Wow, lots to say. As I am sure Chas will confirm, your understanding of EXP is miles off. First, if you spot meter the whites accurately you need to add 1 1/3 stops of light to come up with a correct EXP for the whites, not subtract 1 1/3 stops... Second, even if this is exactly how you wanted the image to look, your setting are still wrong by miles. You need to expose properly for the whites and then make the image dark to your taste in Photoshop. You are depriving your image file of tons of color information.

You say you wanted the bird and the blue ripples and nothing else. Well, nobody can see the bird. If that makes you happy, I am fine with that. Lastly, as to head angle. You seem to be defending the image. In 99.9% of bird and wildlife photos, if the head is angled away the image suffers. And that is the case here. But not to worry I guess since it is nearly impossible to see the head anyway.

I look forward to seeing how the rest of your audience feels about the artistic impact of your image. As it seems that you are totally happy with the look of the image I shall leave any post-processing suggestions to Chas. In the meantime, now that we have at least in part covered the technical aspects of the image, I am interested to see what others think about the image.

Whenever we offer critiques we share our honest opinion while trying to help you become a better photographer.

[Charles Glatzer]

Wow, lots to say. As I am sure Chas will confirm, your understanding of EXP is miles off. First, if you spot meter the whites accurately you need to add 1 1/3 stops of light to come up with a correct EXP for the whites, not subtract 1 1/3 stops... You need to expose properly for the whites and then make the image dark to your taste in Photoshop. You are depriving your image file of tons of color information.

Jose, I fully agree with Artie above. With Canon I typically add 1.7 to 2 stops off white highlight. There is no way I can manually spot meter and adjust for this on the run. I could manually do it ahead of time off something in the same light, or use Av set to spot meter plus 1.7 with the spot locked to AF point on the chest.

A spot meter renders whatever is in the pattern a mid-tone. You must first recognize how bright or dark the area metered is within the pattern from a mid-tone, then decide how much comp to add/subtract to render the value as desired. Plus comp to make the value lighter, minus comp to make the value darker.

I usually prefer to get the image right in the camera, I do not typically expose greatly to the right unless the image has great tonal range. With whites I will push the highlights to the edge, this opens up the shadows. Thereafter, I select the highlights via Color Range, etc and render the highlight detail as desired.

I commend your effort, you just need to go a step further in execution.

Best,

Chas

[Jose Suro]

Jose, I fully agree with Artie above. With Canon I typically add 1.7 to 2 stops off white highlight. There is no way I can manually spot meter and adjust for this on the run. I could manually do it ahead of time off something in the same light, or use Av set to spot meter plus 1.7 with the spot locked to AF point on the chest.

A spot meter renders whatever is in the pattern a mid-tone. You must first recognize how bright or dark the area metered is within the pattern from a mid-tone, then decide how much comp to add/subtract to render the value as desired. Plus comp to make the value lighter, minus comp to make the value darker.

I usually prefer to get the image right in the camera, I do not typically expose greatly to the right unless the image has great tonal range. With whites I will push the highlights to the edge, this opens up the shadows. Thereafter, I select the highlights via Color Range, etc and render the highlight detail as desired.

I commend your effort, you just need to go a step further in execution.

Best,

Chas

Hi Charles,

I much welcome your comments, after all that is what art should be all about - controversy. By the way, I love Artie; he has done more than any single human being should have ever done for avian photography. But we have to keep an open mind! I so much welcome controversy as it tells me that I am no longer part of the herd, which is exactly my goal. I am no longer after “illustration” kind of images, the kind that are much in demand in birding books and websites, although it is hard sometimes to get away from them with the smaller birds. Being different is not only good, it is mandatory as an artistic statement. When it comes to avian images we should all welcome artistic expression, not cookie cutter illustrations.

I noticed you and Artie got all involved in tech stuff exposure wise. Bottom line is that however I arrived at my manual exposure settings; the whites are perfect – borderline under exposed - it is easy to make assumptions based on "rules of thumb" when looking at an image on the web that turn out to be wrong because "you had to be there" when the measurement took place. Did you look at the large image link? It shows that the background is not “blocked”. And FWIW, I don’t espouse exposing to the right, won’t get into that either as that’s a whole other topic. And that should all be immaterial anyways, unless the requirement is that every feather be visible and in its place, which would take us back to illustrations, not art. Art is what I’m after and I might or might not succeed and time will tell. So far though, it is going very well for me in that regard. Back to exposure, I devoted the last four months of my life to exactly that. To the extent that I purchased a Sekonic L-758 meter for my landscape shots.When it comes to photography light is my life. If I post an image on the net, or on my mailing list, it is exactly as I want it light wise. Guess I could post the comments I have received on my mailing list on this particular image to prove the point but that would be overkill.

I still of course welcome your comments – the comments on the last image I posted before this one were very helpful as the image posted was tilted and I had just sold but not delivered that image – so that worked great. I did find that the original was straight but the posted one was not.

Anyway, thanks again for your kind comments they are much appreciated.

<O:p
All the best,

<O:p</O:p
Jose

[Charles Glatzer]

Jose,

I am all for you following your own visionary path. I merely suggest that in order to fulfill your vision a firm understanding of photographic fundamentals will prove prudent. I see no controversy. Having more "crayons in your box" will enable you to better draw your own vision. "Everyone must follow a path to reach the end of the road, some paths are longer than others".

Best in all your endeavors.

Chas

[Arthur Morris]

Agree. There is no controversy here. You are simply choosing to do things the wrong way; not exposing to the right is simply sticking your head in the sand.

Intiimating that you could defend your choices by quoting the folks from your mailing list while two of the premier photographic educators ever to walk the planet are trying to help would be somewhat ludicrous. Best of luck.

[Dave Mills]

Jose...I understand what your saying regarding artistic expression but folks here are mostly going to look at images in a technically fundamental way(which they should) and critique the image in that manor. It's very difficult for one to get into a photographers head(not knowing them) and analyze what they were thinking when they took the image. In your opening remarks it might of been helpful if you addressed the obvious technical flaws and stated what you were trying to do so people who were attempting to be of service might not of spent their time pointing them out to you.

[Patricio Murphy]

Agree. There is no controversy here. You are simply choosing to do things the wrong way; not exposing to the right is simply sticking your head in the sand.

Hi Art,
so the advise to get the most out of a digital capture would be to make sure to get as much info as we can by exposing to the right, then (and only then) pursuing any visualisation? In other words, if I, for some reason, like the shot to be dark, it's still best to get the pixels right, the work the image in PP, isn't it?
It sounds like it's also a way of leaving the door open to future versions of the image, rather than sticking to a vision that, in the end, may prove wrong.

As of this image, I too find it too dark. I like the idea of just the bird and the blue ripples, but find disturbing the fact that (at least in my monitor) the bird seems to fade into the background. I don't agree with (perjaps I don't get the meaning) the statement: "that was the light". I'm pretty sure to the naked eye, given the fact that it has way mor dynamic range than the sensor, both the whites and the background should appear a little lighter, and that's perhaps what disturbs me: I don't see the point in making this image appear unreal, since it portrays a bird in it's natural behaviour and doesn't offer a lot more to look at. My guess is that a more naturalistic approach would render a better image.
Anyways, I hope the argument doesn't keep you from posting! While, as mostly everyone, I love to get compliments, this kind of discussions can be really educative and contribute with lots of useful info. I mean, the topic in question is great: how do we see a picture? how do we translate that view to the final image? how much did we succeed?
Regadrs from Buenos Aires,
Pat

[Tony Whitehead]

Patricio, I think you have understood it correctly. I admire Jose's vision to see what he wants to achieve at the time of taking the photo. Lots of folks get so stuck on understanding the techniscal issues that the artistic vision never appears. The issue really extracting the most from the limitations of image capture to maximise the final production of your artistic vision. If the idea was to have an out of the camera jpeg matching your vision then Jose's approach is correct. My feeling is that the RAW file is the equivalent of a negative in film terms so that you will not achieve an optimal print if your exposure gives you a thin negative to work with. Digitally most of our data lies to the right of the histogram so if we are not utilising this we are restricted to "printing" from far less information so cannot achieve an optimal result. I think these were the points that Artie and Chas were making. Unfortunately photography is a technical medium and as you point out has significant limitations in comparison to our vision (and even more in comparison to our imagination) so we need to master those technical limitations to maximaise our artistic expression. Like you I look forward to more of Jose's images as he offers a different perspective to most of the images posted here.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Patricio,

re:

So the advise to get the most out of a digital capture would be to make sure to get as much info as we can by exposing to the right, then (and only then) pursuing any visualisation?

That is absolutely correct.

In other words, if I, for some reason, like the shot to be dark, it's still best to get the pixels right, the work the image in PP, isn't it?

Yes sir.

It sounds like it's also a way of leaving the door open to future versions of the image, rather than sticking to a vision that, in the end, may prove wrong.

Right again.

As of this image, I too find it too dark.

That's because it is.

[Charles Glatzer]

How you, I, or anyone else would prefer the image is not relevant to Jose vision. I commend anyone who tries to step out of the box and try something different. Which more often than not becomes a target of subjectivity. The problem lies in the refuted exposure logic, under-exposing the whites via spot metering by 1.3 EV will render the whites approx. 3 stops under-exposed, and thus the overall image will appear dark as a result. There is simply no way the image could look as presented here, being exposed as above, out of the camera. Exposed correctly a world of post-production options open up to render the image as envisioned. In fact being able to mentally visualize the final image before depressing the shutter is key to being a successful photographer. But, I also recognize what tools and techniques I need to apply both in camera and in post-production to arrive at my intended goal. My only goal here is to empower the photographer with knowledge to further his creative callings.

Respectfully,

Chas