Printable View
Canon 7D
Canon 500/4
1/2500 sec f/7.1 ISO 640
Viveza2
Crop for composition and sharpening in CS6
Noiseware Pro on BG
Attachment 129845
I was happy that I could see the eye well through the wall of water. The splash sort of reminded me of a motorcycle windshield ...
What an awesome splash!!
Have you tried for more highlight recovery? The high contrast competes with the beauty of the moment, for me.
Thanks for looking and commenting, Diane, but I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. You think it's too contrasty? I did some recovery using Viveza, but didn't add much contrast at all.
The whites are very bright to me, on the edge of blown out. Are you shooting RAW? The RAW converter starts with canned settings, which often need to be changed for best results for any given image. (The settings aren't specific to each image.) Have you looked at bringing down the whites / lights a little bit? I think it would make the egret a little more the way our eyes would see it.
Diane, yes I always shoot in RAW. These are converted in ACR with adjustments, but have been playing a bit recently (due to constant repetition by Arash) with using DPP for my conversions. I don't see any blown whites here (all seem to actually be under 240), but may have missed a spot. I'll play a bit and bring the whites down further and see how it looks. It was unusual light this morning. The egret was lit by morning sunlight in addition to significant reflection off the pond (note the ripples). Thanks for your suggestions.
Maybe not really blown out, but seemingly lacking detail, to me. Maybe just very frontal lighting. I like having the sun 45 degrees off one shoulder instead of straight behind me.
DPP in my limited experience is very good at keeping highlights under control, but I still love the control of LR / ACR in the new Process 2012.
The splash is awesome, and like you, I dig the transparent quality with the bird's face/eye being seen clearly. I could see a looser composition here with more room in front of the subject working, as well as pointing the lens down a quite a bit to get the whole reflection...You are clearly not directly on the light angle...it's a fair amount to your right hand side, and that is what is causing the contrast that Diane is referring to. Still, the exposure work looks pretty solid to me. A lower shooting angle would have been worth trying here too.
That wall of water is amazing, and I like your reference to a motorcycle windshield. You even have some splashing at the leg...lots of water action in this image:S3: Although not blown I too feel the whites could be toned down, and I wish for more at bottom. The greens and browns of the water surface look very good.
Excellent image with very nice composition. Love the wall of water and eye through it.
Regards,
Satish
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn Zierman
I agree I'd like to see the whole reflection. But it’s not being off the light angle that’s causing the contrast. On the contrary, having light slightly from the side allows some detail to show in the shape of the bird and in the white feathers. Contrast here is because you have a very light subject against a dark background and optimal adjustments have not been made.
Contrast in almost all cases can be handled well by proper RAW conversion. In LR / ACR the Shadows and Highlights sliders are a small miracle, and can be further augmented by Clarity and things like Nik Tonal Contrast.
Here’s a very crude look at reducing contrast with the Shadows-Highlights adjustment. The whites have gone muddy here (they were less than ideal in the OP) -- you can do much better with the sliders in LR4 or the corresponding ACR that has the Process 2012 improvements in the sliders.
The sheet of water frozen is what makes this image for me
good piece of action all around
Good action but the whites are too hot in both original and RP.
I agree -- I didn't do it as much good as I had hoped for. This one needs to go back to RAW conversion. It's an amazing capture worth the work.
