Usually Not My Faves...

I photographed this flapping Mute Swan on the JBWR/Nickerson Beach IPT in fairly early morning light. I took several long series of these guys flapping after baths. (I have a thing against large introduced species that beat up the regularly occurring nesters but as Denise says, blame the folks who brought them here not the birds :)

Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D MIV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/2000 sec. at f/6.3.

My favorite part of the image is the elegant pose.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

Artie:

Perfect exposure on this one. Pose is nice, esp. like the tail clear of the water.

Nice comp.

Cheers

Randy

Hi Artie. Agree with your comments above. Great exposure showing those pearl white feathers and the light blue water makes a great combination. Gary.

Ditto Randy- Perfect exposure! I love the sharp details and the sweet posing face. It's a lovely swan and a lovely image.

As mentioned, very nice exposure and beautiful detail in the whites. Great wing position and S-shape of the body. There are a very small number of water drops and one prominant one that could be removed because they are too few to make an impact- not a deal-breaker though.

I read a paper a while ago suggesting that Mute Swans are native to North America. It has since been largely discredited mainly because it was not peer-reviewed. Conservation agencies generally use 50 years as the cut-off beyond which an introduced species is considered native.

If the entire water was that ice blue it would put it over the top. I like how the feathers on his body make him look cuddly soft in addition to being able to discern all the ones on the wings.

I have seen in previous posts you asking the poster how they arrived at their exposure. Do you mind sharing how you did for this ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike Tracy

If the entire water was that ice blue it would put it over the top. I like how the feathers on his body make him look cuddly soft in addition to being able to discern all the ones on the wings. I have seen in previous posts you asking the poster how they arrived at their exposure. Do you mind sharing how you did for this ?

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Agree on the water; darn those phragmites on the far shore. As for the EXP, I have been indicating how I come up with the EXP on practically every image that I have published for the past two decades and did so here in Pane #1: Evaluative metering +2/3 stop. :)

Artie, yes the pose is indeed very elegant and the whites are terrific.

Astonishing details captured in the whites ! Like the pose and comp. Good DOF and natural water colours. Well done sir :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike Tracy

If the entire water was that ice blue it would put it over the top. I like how the feathers on his body make him look cuddly soft in addition to being able to discern all the ones on the wings. I have seen in previous posts you asking the poster how they arrived at their exposure. Do you mind sharing how you did for this ?

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Mike, With regards to my post in Pane #7, did I misunderstand your question above?

You handled the whites really well, Artie; I salute you for getting out of bed so early. Shots like yours show why ill-informed, well-intentioned people couldn't resist the temptation to introduce these beautiful birds to North America.

Thanks Craig, I am almost always out of bed way-early....

Nice enough image. It would have been better if the head didn't intersect with the birds wing.

You might have misunderstood me since you stated your settings but not how you arrived at them. My question was meant to benefit those who might be new to photography / BPN or exposing for white subjects and it was my hope you would share a couple of your methods with them.

Looked at this swan for the fist time since my initial post. I like him even more this go around.

If I disappear for a few days and don't reply it's due to having to cull a couple thousand surf images from today and hitting those gnarly :cool: waves myself tomorrow. Shaka.

Thanks Mike, I figured out after the fact that that might be what you were looking for. +2/3 was my first choice there and a quick check of the histogram proved that I was right on. The soft light, lots of white in the frame, and light blue water (caused by the soft, early light), and knowledge of my camera--the MIV, led me to +2/3. Ooops. I forgot 28 years of trying to understand exposure :) FWIW, +1 probably would have worked just fine.

I am doing a piece on exposure in the next Bulletin that basically says, "Add or subtract light so that you have data at least halfway into the right-most box on the histogram without having any flashing highlights and you will have a workable if not perfect EXP."