Never had the chance to photograph this species up until yesterday.
Olympus E500, Sigma 50-500mm @500mm, f/9, 1/500th of a second. Processed in CS2-light leveling, slight saturation boost, minor USM.
Whites are too blown out, I can't really seem to tame them in post processing, I think I lost too much detail in the RAW file. I tried a reverse curve and that didn't help. I do like the eye contact though.
07-08-2008, 06:27 AM
Axel Hildebrandt
Great find, I like the preening pose. I might sharpen the bird more and tone down the highlights a bit. I would also put him a tad further to the right in the frame. Keep them coming!
07-08-2008, 10:41 AM
Daniel Cadieux
The harsh light did not help you here. I have better luck in these situations when underexposing a bit (say -0.7) in manual exposure and letting the flash (set to at least -1) do some work on the blacks...this method also helps me not blowing out the whites.
07-08-2008, 08:06 PM
Paul Ricciardi
Daniel-Unfortunately I don't have a flash (yet) and bring my AC strobes into the field isn't really an option haha. I did what I could to keep the highlights under control but I was afraid of losing shadow details. In retrospect I think I should have just exposed for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may.
Hopefully I'll get another chance to photograph an Anhinga again soon. Thanks for the flash tip, I really want to purchase a flash and a BB and add them to my bag, the exposure suggestion in regards to flash should be helpful.
07-09-2008, 10:07 AM
Daniel Cadieux
Paul, keep in mind that I'm assuming you were in close range for the tip I provided above - and this is without a BB. As with all situations the histogram is your best :-)