I was once told (by a member) that there was simply no way to get detail in either black or white plumage. Ahem... At the time the discussion was about white birds, but today I'm thinking about black birds. This raven was sitting in a dense oak grove with virtually no direct sun to be had. The image is full frame. The details in the plumage were recovered using LR4.
1D4, EF400mm f/5.6L
Manual mode, f/5.6@1/400 ISO 1600 WB 5100K
AI Servo autofocus, hand-held no flash
"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart, and head." - Henri Cartier Bresson
Hi Kerry. Excellent detail, composition, exposure. I did hear that getting proper exposure of black and white birds can be practically impossible in harsh (high contrast) light, wait, that was me!, but didn't hear about not getting detail in black or white plumage. In any case I've found the light you had perfect for dark colored birds. The biggest problem is needing high ISOs since there isn't a whole lot of light. Anyway, you nailed it. ~Bill
Joshua, I did not expose to the right. There are some situations, like this, where the meter is not smart enough to know what I want (actually, it seldom is). I didn't want the few highlights of sky in the background to be blown out, and I didn't want the blacks to be artificially elevated. What I wanted to do with the exposure was make sure the blacks were not clipped and the rest of the scene was subdued. This was a case of knowing from experience that I would need to add about four stops of light in the deep shade of this oak grove, so I set the camera that way and checked my histogram. You can see here that I accomplished what I wanted and I did not adjust the exposure. The meter would have been fooled by the overall lack of light and probably would have overexposed the image. You can see that I had a few pixels clipped in the blacks, but I was fine with that because, well that's what black is.
"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart, and head." - Henri Cartier Bresson
Kerry, thanks for the great example of detail in the blacks and even more so for your explanation of how you got the most out of this shot. I'm still struggling with detail in whites myself (this place is overrun with cattle egrets ). Examples and explanations like this are really helpful.
Most excellent work on the details .... a really UNCOMMON success on the "common" Raven.... SO difficult.... really admire what you have done here. I might try to tone down some of the bright blues in the BG to make the Raven pop even more. Congrats!
Common Raven - detail in blacks
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