Snowy Poser

[Lance Peters]

Well mjust couldnt seem to nail the exposure on this one and keep the whites white - without blowing out some of the highlights.

Tried lots of different exposure combinations and couldnt quite get it right, either didnt get white whites or got blown highlights.

1/250th
F8
Matrix Metering
NO EV
500mm

Lance

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Lance

Can help on this one !!!! You did not list the compensation used but judging form the exposure and that it was in full sun its easy to figure out. Your setting was f 8.0 1/500 Sunny sixteen would have been f8.0 1/1000 So you are one over for this image

A bird in full sun (white bird) will be overexposed at that setting !!! A more realistic setting would have been f 8.0 1/1600 or 1/2000 Not sure what was going on in camera but is not likely that you would get that exp with no compensation. Next time out try the sunny sixteen rule and check results !!!

You have a good composition and excellent head angle Is usually best not to photograph at such hight angle. I like the placement of the bird in frame with the extra room up front !!!!

[Lance Peters]

Hi Alfred - exposure was +1EV.

The Histogram was still to the left of centre, hence I added light to try and get it to the right of centre.
Alas also my blinkies were turned off - If they had of been on at least I would have woken up to the problem of the blown highlights and ignored the histogram and kept the details in the whites.

Guess I can go back to the raw and see what I can get out of it.

Lance

[Alfred Forns]

Lance the part of the histogram left of center could not have been the whites That image is over exposed by close to two stops You can open the raw image and see

The width of the histogram is the entire tonal range The hight is how much of one tone Don't go by the big lumps or shape Look a the very right side You do not want any pixels crawling up the right side.

I figured your compensation from he conditions On a sunny day you don not need a meter to know the exposure It is constant adn predictable.

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Hey Lance, Agree with Al on the compensation. Also you do have a very nice composition. From where I'm looking I think there might be some sensor spots to the left of the beek.
Regards,
Oscar

[Blake Shadle]

The width of the histogram is the entire tonal range The hight is how much of one tone Don't go by the big lumps or shape Look a the very right side You do not want any pixels crawling up the right side.

Well put, Al. It's very important to learn to "see" tonality. Seeing tonality will unlock a lot of understanding when it comes to exposure and histograms. You want your histogram to accurately represent the range of tonalities in your scene. If you have something much darker than a medium tone, there should be some data far left of center. I would say the blue background was about 1/3 to 2/3 darker than a medium tone. The would account for the large clump to the left of center when you were first making the image.