Caspar Davis
12-08-2009, 07:28 PM
I took this picture a week or so ago on the Boundary Bay dike, south of Vabcouiver.
The sun was bright but fairly low in the western sky, making for great lighting. This is one of a series of pictures I took just as we were arriving at a good viewpoint. The birds were probably Dunlins, but were too far away to positively identify. They were acting as one in flock-mind, and their colours acted like binary switches, making parts of the mass either dark or white at each moment.
I think the whole series is quite striking, catch the changing shape and colours of the flock as they wheeled, but I didn't have time to check the histogram as the whole series of 25 pictures was shot in just 13 seconds.
I was using basic 50D evaluative metering in Program mode (1/640@f8, ISO 400) and I think they are somewhat underexposed, although I can't add much more than 1/3 stop in ACR without getting red dots. I have tried many edits of these pictures, playing around with exposure, shadows/highlights and levels but none come anywhere near recreating the quality of the light I remember, with the sun shining brightly from my right rear. My eye saw very strong contrasts, the birds bright white or dark against a much stronger background than shows in these pictures.
Since none of my attempts at post processing (with PS Elements) is anything like satisfactory to me, I am sending the JPEGs as they came from the camera in the hope that I can get some good advice about how to improve them.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. :o<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
The sun was bright but fairly low in the western sky, making for great lighting. This is one of a series of pictures I took just as we were arriving at a good viewpoint. The birds were probably Dunlins, but were too far away to positively identify. They were acting as one in flock-mind, and their colours acted like binary switches, making parts of the mass either dark or white at each moment.
I think the whole series is quite striking, catch the changing shape and colours of the flock as they wheeled, but I didn't have time to check the histogram as the whole series of 25 pictures was shot in just 13 seconds.
I was using basic 50D evaluative metering in Program mode (1/640@f8, ISO 400) and I think they are somewhat underexposed, although I can't add much more than 1/3 stop in ACR without getting red dots. I have tried many edits of these pictures, playing around with exposure, shadows/highlights and levels but none come anywhere near recreating the quality of the light I remember, with the sun shining brightly from my right rear. My eye saw very strong contrasts, the birds bright white or dark against a much stronger background than shows in these pictures.
Since none of my attempts at post processing (with PS Elements) is anything like satisfactory to me, I am sending the JPEGs as they came from the camera in the hope that I can get some good advice about how to improve them.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. :o<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">