They are back!! Black tailed goodwit

[Willem Verboom]

I made this picture yesterday afternoon the sun was there also when I made this picture of the black tailed goodwit.
No photoshop on on the head only the regulair thing ,cropping and sharpening.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/5517946049_dee9a727e4_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/willem_verboom/5517946049/)

canon 1d3 700 mm mm spot ev -1/3 iso 125

Thanks for watching
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[Arthur Morris]

I will be in Holland next April with Peter Kes mainly for this species:) As for the seven miles of EXIF data, here are my comments from another thread: The EXIF contains lots of irrelevant stuff :) Best is lens, camera, accessories, ISO, metering method, exposure compensation, shutter speed, and aperture. The one that I am most interested in that folks rarely include is EC :)

There is no way that spot metering -1/3 stop can be right for this image with a MIII. What did you meter off????

Basic COMP is good but with the off-angled light and the dark slash cutting through the bird this one does not work for me.

Why spot metering????

[Willem Verboom]

I meter on his eye.....but I think that your mistake in this one is that there was a cloud in front and a bundle of sunlight comes through this cloud just on his head.

Willem

[Arthur Morris]

Not only is that not my mistake but I have made no mistake in my comments :) It is not possible to spot meter on a bird's eye. It is far too small and makes zero sense as well. With all due respect it seems that you are quite mis-guided when it comes to getting the right exposure. Unless you have an out of kilter Mark IV the original here must have been well under-exposed. Under-exposing images and then brightening them in Photoshop is poor technique.

I hope that you do not take make comments personally as I am just trying to help :)

[Willem Verboom]

I'm not mad or so but it is really the truth what I wrote Arthur. If you will I can send you the original photo too see it for your self.

Willem

[Clemens Vanderwerf]

Willem, apart from the exposure issue (I do agree with Artie that metering on the eye does not make too much sense, and could throw off the exposure for the whole image), I would have move the bird more to the middle of the frame. More space behind and less in front. Especially, the chunk of grass in the middle right side of the frame can go IMO. You might want to loose a bit of grass from the bottom as well.

What aperture and shutter speed did you use?

Groet,
Clemens

[Arthur Morris]

I look forward to seeing a JPEG that represents the the RAW without any adjustments :)

[Willem Verboom]

Arthur ..it's done by your website

[Arthur Morris]

Willem, I am confused by your comment above. Please explain. What is done where????

[Willem Verboom]

That I send you a email with the jpeg file from de limosa trough your website email.

But I'm going to bed now it's almost 2.00 hour.

Sleep well

[Arthur Morris]

Good night. When you have a chance, please post the image to the thread here. Thanks :)

[Willem Verboom]

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x15/vmotion/Arthur.jpg

[Arthur Morris]

Thank you Willem. As I surmised, you original capture is hugely underexposed. The histogram should be all the way to the right.

Also as I suggested you have no clue as to what you are doing with exposure. If you wish to learn, get yourself copies of ABP (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=16) and ABP II (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=19)and Digital Basics (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252). And then study them. If you do, you can learn the stuff in short order. It is not all that difficult :)

Best of luck.

[Willem Verboom]

Arthur, I now that he is under exposed but that is meand too be.....If I did't this the spot was less visible if you now what I mean.

[Arthur Morris]

I am a bit confused. Are you saying that you wanted to underexpose the image?

[Willem Verboom]

Yes too let the spot come out more!

[Arthur Morris]

What spot?

No matter your answer, it is improper technique to make your RAW file so dark. When and if you lighten it (which you did) you are introducing digital noise.

Though we have language difficulties you seem to want to only do it your way and only to be "right." You do not seem to be willing to learn or to take advice so I will let you be.

[Willem Verboom]

Arthur ....I really want too learn from you and others but at that moment that I saw the light fall on the goodwit 's head I tought that was the best way too express it the best way I gold think of. I liked that light at the moment and obviously by your opinion it was not the right way.

How can I do it better nnext time ?

I tought at that moment ....if I expose it the right way most of the light disappears in mine opinion? So I tought too do it this way .

[Arthur Morris]

The right way is to push the histogram to the right to capture the greatest amount of data and produce the highest quality image possible. THEN you take the image into Photoshop and make it look the way you want it.

Lastly, spot-metering for birds with digital is pretty much nuts.... Learn to use Evaluative or Matrix metering with compensation and to evaluate and adjust your histograms.

[Willem Verboom]

Okee Arthur I get your point. This one is a bad one. Bit the next is better you see. Thanks for al your comments.

The next one would be a common stonechat.

Thanks for al and good night

[Randy Stout]

Willem:

I just came to this thread, and I think I get your original intention, that you liked the light area "spot of light" on the bird, while the rest of the image was darker, and wanted to preserve that effect.

Even with this intention, it would have been better to expose the histogram to the right, giving you much more data to work with, and then later you could reduce the overall exposure to taste to get the effect. The relative brightness of the different parts of the image will remain in the same proportions, even if you push the overall exposure to the right, as you should. Often the correct exposure looks washed out on the back of the camera, and when you originally open it on the computer, but as long as you don't clip the highlights significantly, this is where you want to start, then adjust from there to get the effect you want. Your image quality will be much better in the long run, and you will have much more flexibility this way to manipulate the final image. If you underexpose to begin with, you are throwing away most of the data that the camera can collect, and will introduce significant noise when you try to lighten the image.

Spot metering is difficult under most circumstances with moving, relatively small targets. Plus, the spot in most DSLRs really isn't very small, so to try and just meter on the eye won't get you what you want.

We all want to learn and improve here. Look forward to your next post.

Cheers

Randy

[Willem Verboom]

Randy,

thanks for your detailed explanation......... I now now that I've made a huge misstake on this one.....I promise the next one would be better. I hope that Arthur read you reaction too so hopefully hee nows what I meant too write!

[Arthur Morris]

Have and thanks to Randy for chiming in.

[Randy Stout]

Willem:

You are very welcome.

Look forward to your next one!

Randy

[Mark Young]

Lovely bird Willem. We don't get these as commonly here as we do the Bar-tailed Godwits, and it's nice to see this in breeding plumage too, so I'm looking forward to seeing your next image of these birds.

When in the field and you're composing the image, keep an eye on the bg for elements like the grass that runs behind the birds bill. In this if you had of lowered yourself slightly it would have had a nicer blue bg behind the bird and would've made the birds bill stand out a lot more.