American Oystercatcher - Need Advice on Exposure

[Loi Nguyen]

This is a new species for me, so I'm keen to learn how to exposure properly. I found this bird on a rock near the break water in Ventura Harbor, California. It was a bit far, so I put on the 2X and waded out a little bit. Still had to crop to about 30%.

1DX
500f4 II + 2X III
1/800
f9
ISO-1600
Handheld
Image taken shortly after sunrise.

Converted in LR5 and imported to CS6
In CS6, via Levels, I saw that the Red beak and the white wash on the rock were over-exposed and I burned some fo the highlights. Yet, the dark feathers on the bird's neck looked under-exposed.

My question is how do you exposure for such a situation? I hope to see these guys again and would love to handle the exposure better.

The OOF rock was a distraction, but there is nothing I could do about it. I was distracted by a Pelican fishing and the Oystercatcher took off.

As it turned out, this was a very costly image. I found my car key in my trousers soaked with sea water and dead. I had to call my wife to come for a rescue and while answering my call at an intersection, she got a non=moving ticket, and the image is not even good :(

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Loi

[Henry Domke]

My question is how do you exposure for such a situation?

I don't see any problem with the exposure with what you have here. You have a full tonal range and have rich detail in the shadows of a very dark bird.

The OOF rock was a distraction

I agree. I think it ruins the picture and I don't see how to fix it.

As it turned out, this was a very costly image.

Yikes! The trouble we go through to capture pictures of birds!

Keep on shooting!

[Arthur Morris]

Everything is good but for the big o-o-f rock in front of the bird. There are no hard exposures in digital: just get a good amount of data in the rightmost histogram box without having any significant blinkies on the subject... See the Exposure Simplified section in ABP II.

[Karl Egressy]

As it was mentioned Loi, the OOF rock is not the best feature of the image. The rest including the exposure pose and details are all good.

[Loi Nguyen]

Thank you Henry, Artie, and Karl for your comments. I guess I was a bit unsure whether I had over/under exposed this image. I did use a brush in LR5 to lighten the shadow on the neck and the burn tool on the highlights. Will try yo find these birds again. Loi

[Daniel Cadieux]

For the light quality you had (which is nice and rich) your exposure is very good. It is normal to then use processing to touch up areas of over/underexposure even with proper in-camera exposure for high contrast subjects as the dynamic range of todays DSLRs is just not 100% there yet...but they are getting better and better though! I agree about the rock.