Crane pair parachuting

[Keith Carver]

This image of a SH crane pair at dusk was made at the Bosque last week. Wasn't sure this is the right forum for a silhouette, but here 'tis.

1DM3, 500mm x 1.4, 1/1600 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400, 8000K.

C&C appreciated.

[Randy Stout]

Keith:

Good place for it!

Like the matching poses, inclusion of some background. Might like the birds to be slightly higher in the frame since they are clearly descending. Would have been interesting to see how it looked a second earlier when they were higher above the BG.

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Love the comp Keith! I have a soft spot for a nice silhouette and you are pretty much on the money for my taste. Like how the light comes through the nostrils and that the FG makes a good anchor point for the comp. Not sure if a CW rotation would enhance it, it just seems a little odd and appears tilted. However, when I see the birds' positions they appear fine. I think the whole thought process emanates from the fact that I cannot see enough land detail to see the horizon and its level. Anyway, here is a CW rotated crop. See what you think. If you like you can always add a bit more OOF FG. :)

[Randy Stout]

Akos"

My guess is that the horizon was correct as posted, having seen a number of shoots from Bosque with the hill sides in the background. Keith can set us straight.

I do like the crop that resulted from the rotation however.

Randy

[Keith Carver]

Akos, Randy - this was shot looking SSW over the north crane pool along Rte 1 at the Bosque. The background is part of the Chupaderas Mts and there is a general upslope from left to right. The camera was leveled and the BG is true to the scene. I thought about a tighter crop but concluded I liked the ORIG with more room - as shot. Thanks for your comments & critiques.

[Keith Carver]

Randy, here are the two cranes 1 second before when they were higher. You can just barely see a piece of the mountain in the LRC.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like silhouettes too, and a good one you present us. The inclusion of mountains makes for a much stronger comp (as compared to your additional image). I'd go for darker blacks, and a slightly deeper orange colour. I like the gliding poses!

[david cramer]

I like the original posting as including the mountain slope is the natural look at Bosque. Nice presentation of two cranes in sync.

[Tom Wilberding]

Keith, great shot. I like the silhouette, clarity, mountains, and color. One frustration for me is that very few photographers at BPN include the evaluative metering they used. I am a fan of Art Morris, and he ALWAYS includes his evaluative metering, and he seems to adjust his camera for metering on every shot. I am guessing that you added about 1 stop of light for this silhouette. Or did you just set evaluative metering at zero? Is that what everyone does, except Art Morris? Please enlighten a beginner. Thanks.

[Keith Carver]

Tom, thanks for your comments. For this shot, I didn't make any exposure compensation (EC) - just took the shot with the camera set on aperture priority and matrix evaluation. I wanted to shoot a silhouette and knew that with zero EC I would get a properly exposed sky and an underexposed (dark) bird. If I wanted more detail and color in the bird, I would probably have dialed in a +2 EC. Artie Morris explains all this very well in his classic Digital Basics ( http://www.birdsasart.com/digitalbasics.htm ). It's really worth studying his treatment of histograms and EC.

[Tom Wilberding]

Thanks, Keith. In Art's blog first photo he made a very similar photo, but added 1 stop evaluative metering.
http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/
You added zero. So I am still a bit frustrated and confused. Which is correct? Does evaluative metering mean that much? If no one at BPN provides evaluative metering info, I guess you all just leave it at zero? It is a big issue for Art, but maybe not for most at BPN.

[Keith Carver]

Tom, my choice of 0 compensation was based on my own experience with similar fully backlit silhouette shots. That said, Artie is one of the top nature photographers in the world and I'm his choice of +1 EC would be based on a much more extensive set of shooting experiences. I just saw his image (similar to mine) on his blog a couple of days ago, and notice that his BG has a slightly wider range of tonalities than mine - and that may be due to his choice of +1 EC. I dunno. If he stumbles across this thread, maybe he'll weigh in on the discussion.

[Keith Carver]

Tom, I forgot to mention that many people posting on BPN do include their exposure compensation along with other camera data. If the EC is not included, you could probably assume that for the more experienced posters that it was set to zero. However, the camera data including EC isn't the whole story for many posted images - there's also post-processing to consider and that may include adjustments in exposure, e.g. in Photoshop or Aperture or Lightroom. Some posters give some idea of what they did (if anything) in post processing, some not.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Don't forget that many people (including myself) "shoot" to the right. In a case like this it could mean using some +EC and when converting in RAW we must bring the exposure back down to where it should be - which in some cases it could very well have bene no EC if done in-camera.

P.S. I see many people include EC in the exifs. I know I always do as it is valuable information...but for Canon users that info is not available when using manual exposure (it is available in all other creative modes), so its basically trying to remember from memory what it was at. Man I wish Canon would make that info avilable in their exif...