Black and White Bird in Bright Sun ...

Razorbill with Chick.

This image was created on July 1, 2018 at Bempton Cliffs, UK with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4E FL ED VR lens, the much maligned Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-17E II, and my souped up Nikon D850. ISO 400. Matrix metering +1/3 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/9 in Manual mode. Natural Auto WB at 6:23am on a clear morning. One to the left of center Single Continuous (AI Servo in Canon) shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. Surprising, the selected AF point was on the black feathers of the bird’s neck. Phase detection AF Fine-tune value: +1. See the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide here. Click on the image to see a larger version and note that now you can just make out the eye. The vast improvement would be much easier to see if you were viewing the master file or a large print.

Lots of problems can arise when you are photographing black and white subjects in sunny conditions, even when it is early or late and the light is sweet. You are always fighting excessive contrast, and if the bird has a dark eye and a black face or head, the eye often becomes invisible. Check out the Bempton Cliffs Part IV: It Ain't Just Gannets! Dealing With Invisible Eyes. And a High Level Understanding Exposure Question blog post here to learn how I dealt with those and other problems and to see the full frame original; this is a very small crop.

I posed a very simple question in this blog post that no one has even attempted to answer:

Why was the middle tone, amber-colored iris rendered much too dark in the RAW file?

As for the image, don't be shy. All comments and suggestions are appreciated.

with love, artie

HI Artie, Wow terrific exposure and processing on the eye. I guessed that despite your histogram being perfect, the midtones of the eye were not illuminated enough bc of the angle of the sunlight on the eye...

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Originally Posted by annmpacheco

HI Artie, Wow terrific exposure and processing on the eye. I guessed that despite your histogram being perfect, the midtones of the eye were not illuminated enough bc of the angle of the sunlight on the eye...

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Thanks Ann. Good try on the question but no.

with love, artie

Quote:

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Originally Posted by annmpacheco

HI Artie, Wow terrific exposure and processing on the eye. I guessed that despite your histogram being perfect, the midtones of the eye were not illuminated enough bc of the angle of the sunlight on the eye...

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Thanks. Why were the midtones of the eye not illuminated enough???

with love, artie

Looks like the bird slammed into the wall. The details look great through the whole range here. You were exposing for the whites/highlights is my thinking on the eye being dark. The bird looks like it has an abnormal growth with the chicks head poking out like that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Mack

Looks like the bird slammed into the wall. The details look great through the whole range here. You were exposing for the whites/highlights is my thinking on the eye being dark. The bird looks like it has an abnormal growth with the chicks head poking out like that.

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You are getting there with the question but are not quite there yet. So we are exposing for the WHITEs. In what way does that affect the middle-toned amber-colored eye?

with love, artie

ps: you other two comments do not make a lot of sense to me :)

Great exposure here,love the habitat and interaction too...an amazing image to me.

You are exposing for the whites so the blacks and midtones are underexposed.
But the whites here look very gray to me. I would be tempted to select the whites and reduce the blacks in the whites to get rid of that grey tinge.
I love, love the interaction here and the cliff.
Gail

Thanks Gail. I see what you mean on the flanks when looking at the TIFF file. I think that i overdid things when I reduced the contrast as my last step.

Good job on the answer.

with love, artie

So cool to see the little guy in there! Cliff and shadow are really nice. I agree the whites look too gray, almost as though they've been embossed. Detail through the image is great. I always like sharp feet
and this passes that test perfectly!