Lesson-Sunny 16 Rule

[Joel Eade]

Last Friday I went out with Capt. James Shadle on the Hooptie Deux, the first thing he discussed with me was the Sunny 16 Rule. Using the rule, we stared out with cameras in manual mode using: iso 400 f/8 1/2000 sec. we then used exposure compensation based on the subject at hand whether it be a light/white bird or a dark/black bird.

So this image was made from the deck of the Hooptie Deux.....

EOS 1D MKIII
500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4 TC
Tripod + Wimberly head
1/1250
f/9
iso 400
metering : evaluative -0.67 EC
processed with ACR and CS5

[John Chardine]

Pretty sweet Joel. The exposure looks perfect to me, and it would have been a challenge if you just went with the meter- light bird on a dark background is fairly harsh light. I'm loving the pose and unusual head angle. Very well done on this one.

[Lance Peters]

Hi joel - well done - I would consider cropping some from the bottom - reflection is not that great and would get the eye out of the centre of the Frame.
Exposure looks good.

[Joel Eade]

Re-post with different crop.

[Jon Saperia]

Hi, I am relatively new to this - so take this as my putting something out that will likely be corrected by others. I like your second crop a lot more than the first, but I might have lowered the crop just a bit to get a bit more leg so that there is enough at the bottom of the screen so that the mind does not think the legs are cut off. Also I think a vertical crop would be nice, I would move the left edge in a bit more. The effect of both of these would be to move the eye up a tad and a bit to the left, which given the pose might produce an even more engaging picture.
Just my thoughts.
/jon