With the year 2013 having started with the Great Gray Owl irruption, it is nice to end it with a Snowy Owl irruption...making it a year perfectly bookended by two of the most impressive raptors out there.
Canon 7D + 100-400L @350mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1250s., f/6.3, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, almost FF length-wise. Baited. Man, these guys are WHITE!
I suspect they are not quite as white as you show. Is there any way you could reprocess that file to get some highlight detail? Otherwise the bird is just a solid white mass. No feathers, no shadows, nothing?
If you are shooting in RAW there might be hope. What does it look like when you turn the exposure down?
What software do you use to process your images?
I'd love to see the RAW file to see what could be done with this image.
But as it is I would hit the delete key.
I was very intrigued in reading one of Artie's latest blog entries where he discusses different exposure techniques. I think that here is where manual exposure failed you. As white as the Snowy Owl may be, the bird for my taste is much too bright as presented in this image.
beautiful image all around and I think you can get more details out of the whites as others have said. Here is my try at it using the OP as a starting point.
But I still think that the OP is better ... what I did looks a little crunchy. if I tilt my laptop screen just right. I can see details in the whites of the OP...
I suspect they are not quite as white as you show. Is there any way you could reprocess that file to get some highlight detail? Otherwise the bird is just a solid white mass. No feathers, no shadows, nothing?
If you are shooting in RAW there might be hope. What does it look like when you turn the exposure down?
What software do you use to process your images?
I'd love to see the RAW file to see what could be done with this image.
But as it is I would hit the delete key.
Henry,
The snowy owls are exactly as white as you see and the exposure is spot on. I am not sure if you have ever seen a snowy owl up close, but this is what the bird looks like. Nature has made them pure white so rodents cannot see them, in fact it is very difficult to see them against snow or sky even when they are close.
There are no shadows when you shoot in overcast condition which IS the perfect condition for snowy owl, if you have shadows on a white owl that's the time you press the "Delete" button ;)
I think that what makes the bird here specially white is the snow as the white of the bird reflects the color of the incoming light...in this case white snow... if that makes sense. Not sure if the evolution of white coloration as adult plumage is all linked to prey access under certain conditions, but note that this bird still has spots.
I am looking at this image thinking of how it would look printed and how much detail in the whites would be best seen as I get close to examine the image, say 18" long ... I think there are interesting issues to discus and this is perhaps a good image (example) to talk about what is being brought up... this sort of thing interest me. I am here to learn.
Last edited by Enrique Patino; 12-24-2013 at 12:44 AM.
I think that what makes the bird here specially white is the snow as the white of the bird reflects the color of the incoming light...in this case white snow... if that makes sense. Not sure if the evolution of white coloration as adult plumage is all linked to prey access under certain conditions, but note that this bird still has spots.
I am looking at this image thinking of how it would look printed and how much detail in the whites would be best seen as I get close to examine the image, say 18" long ... I think there are interesting issues to discus and this is perhaps a good image (example) to talk about what is being brought up... this sort of thing interest me. I am here to learn.
...if I tilt my laptop screen just right. I can see details in the whites of the OP...
I don't think you can correctly see/distinguish the subtle tones in this image if you are using a laptop screen. No laptop screen in production has a wide enough color gamut to render subtle tones in a snowy owl under this condition. Unless you are using a high-end S-IPS desktop screen that is accurately calibrated by hardware means you won't get far IMO.
Also note print is completely different from display, print is based on reflected light from paper/color pigments while an LCD screen is based on TFT transmission and a backlight. You may see tones in print that you wouldn't see on a monitor and vice versa...they are not directly comparable.
Another point worth considering is what is it that you want to show. As a photograph I strive to make my photographs looks as close as possible to the scene as I observed with my eyes, you could push and pull exposure to extract more details but sometimes it makes the image look unnatural or "fake" to the trained eye... like all of those awful HDR's (IMO). I laugh when I see them but they have become a cult these days and many folks like them...
Above Dan has accurately depicted what a human eye would see, were they present at the field at that time (I was standing next to him)
Last edited by arash_hazeghi; 12-24-2013 at 01:13 AM.
I am not claiming I can see correctly (as well as with better screens) with my laptop screen... but that is what I am using today... and not sure why I need to get far or what you mean by that...
Obviously print and monitor display are different and all that... You lost me there... I am just imagining Daniel's image printed... I said that so that he would get the gist of my comment
as for " accurately depicted what a human eye would see, were they present at the field at that time"...
I stated another thread because I am interested in that concept...
I am not claiming I can see correctly (as well as with better screens) with my laptop screen... but that is what I am using today... and not sure why I need to get far or what you mean by that...
It means you cannot make an accurate judgment about exposure and tones so long as you are using a laptop screen. This is one of the first things we tell folks here, and also teach at workshops. If you care, you need to get a good display and spend some time calibrating it to get the best results. For me, laptop is only a storage device.
I don't understand what you are trying to say about printing . I cannot "imagine" something printed, I have to print it first and then make a judgement if it is good or not...
I agree it's best to start another thread about some of these issues as this forum is dedicated to image critique only,
I do care and I do plan to keep upgrading monitors, like anyone else. But I am on travel and all I have is my laptop at the moment. Do I need to defend that? if you do not understand what I tried to say re imagining it printed w/o printing it for the purpose of the comment and its context, then ... best left like that... Hopefully Daniel got the gist of it...
Thanks for the discussion guys! Yes, this is indeed just about what we saw in the field, and if you pull up my previous Snowy Owl thread the exposure and amount of detail (or lack of) is virtually the same. In any case, here is a screen grab of my un-edited raw file as pulled up in LR5. Note the just about perfect histogram. Manual exposure was also the way to go here as the BG was ever changing from what you see here to pure whites of the sky and ground combined with unchanging light conditions. A fun educational thread so far, thanks all!
Last edited by Daniel Cadieux; 12-24-2013 at 09:19 PM.
Reason: typos!!
Beautiful image regards detail in the white plumage you were there I wasn't, I would suggest however that the jpeg does show clipping.
The histogram of the raw file looks good, had it been mine I would have probably lowered the whites and possibly the highlights a little bit before converting to a jpeg. I suspect you decided not to in order to reproduce the scene you recalled.
Thanks for showing your screen in Lightroom. It's hard for me to know how to approach it without having the file on my computer (could you send it to me?)
But you might try this:
1. Start by seeing if there is any data in the white parts of the bird. Do that by simply taking your exposure slider down 1 or even 2 stops. Zoom in to 1:1 or 2:1 and look at the blown out parts of the bird. Is there more detail there? If not, then it might be hopeless.
2. If there is more data in the highlights (I'm guessing there might be) then try something like this:
Exposure: - 0.4
Contrast: - 50
Highlights: -50
This does not address your mid tones or shadow areas, but they can be dealt with next.
Daniel, lovely flight image. Like the incoming pose and the eyes! I'm glad I read the treads as I first also wondered whether there should have been more details in the white. I shot some pictures of a whooping crane in Florida with Jim Neiger this past weekend and I din't see details on the neck of the bird either, so I was wondering if I screwed it up on the exposure somehow. Now I realized that I was just reproducing the scene faithfully. I couldn't see the details of the white in the viewfinder either. and I was positive that I didn't blow the exposure. TFS. Loi
I think that what makes the bird here specially white is the snow as the white of the bird reflects the color of the incoming light...in this case white snow... if that makes sense. Not sure if the evolution of white coloration as adult plumage is all linked to prey access under certain conditions, but note that this bird still has spots.
You pretty much have it nailed. The whiteness of the photograph (not the bird itself) is etiher a processing "error" or over exposure. Of course on a cloudy day the light is very low contrast, hence it appears that processing is the reason the photograph is as it is. But... it's dramatic that way! Besides, as has been suggested there aren't many people who've seen enough Snow Owls to have any idea what they really do look like!
I don't know that I've seen more than about 60 in any one day... that I'm sure about. I did in fact count that many on one particular day 4-5 years ago. But in years when there are lots of lemmings there are Snowy Owls about 4 per mile on each side of the roads going out on the tundra here. It should not be hard to actually see more than 100 of them with no effort at all. The Inupiaq Eskimo word for Barrow is Ukpeagvik, which means "The place we hunt owls."
The whiteness of a breeding male is due to genetic selection. The young males have significant black patches until they are about 6 years old, and females very clearly select whiter males over those with more black markings.
It isn't known why that is, but to throw another clinker out, consider that their ability to hunt is most important while the female is nesting and for a period of time after the chicks hatch. For about a month and a half the male provides food for himself and for 1 and sometimes more that 1 female, plus after about 30 days for 4 to 8 chicks. But at that time there is no snow and they stick out like a sore thumb on the flat tundra where they nest! And they are very aware of that too! The female will slide off a nest and scoot away on the ground if a predator approaches within about 3/8ths of a mile. The male only goes near the nest when delivering food. And if approached he will lead a predator away from the nest, as will the female once she has moved some distance away.
If a predator actually does get close to the nest, the male will attack.
All young birds have the black bars and stripes markings. The females have fewer as they get older, and they are less distinct, but do not become totally white. The males become mostly white as they reach maturity.
Hence the one pictured, which clearly has markings on its wingtips and head, is probably a young bird, though it's hard to say if it is male or female because the markings do appear to be quite distinct and plentiful.
Whatever, it is a wonderfully composed image, and while I wouldn't want the whites so washed out I wouldn't be upset if that was unrecoverable, or for that matter if someone else does it with purpose.
A wonderful image and an interesting discussion. I am very glad that all are acting in a civil manner.
A few comments:
1-I am 99.99% sure that the original here was a RAW file.
2-The original capture is clearly NOT over-exposed despite several folks stating that the image is "over-exposed."
3-Bob, the shooting mode that you use has zero to do with getting the right exposure. Here, with the tonality of the background potentially changing, using Manual mode is mandatory. You need to re-read the blog post here and follow the link there to the "Working in Manual mode" post...
4-I like to convert my WHITEs without having any RGB values > 235....
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Thanks again everyone! Floyd, a special thanks for the extra info about this amazing species too :-)
It's a fascinating bird! I see that I said it is the male which will attack if you get close to the nest. I should have said the female. She gets protective, not the male.
What a nice thread! I am enjoying where much reading all the comments. Happy you are using your combo that is your signature ... 7D+100-400mm. I have never seen this bird, but for sure the image isn't underexposed. I am looking forward to see more of that day with Arash.
Incoming Snowy Owl.
Robert Kimbrell thanked for this post
Originally Posted by Henry Domke
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