This image was taken in a wooded spot of the backyard. Setup: Portable blind (homemade), bird feeder to camera left with sunflower seeds occasionally sprinkled on the ground.
7D, 400mm F5.6, small handle grip. Flash: 600 EXRT as fill (on camera). Exposure: RAW, ISO 800, F5.6, 1/1000 handheld, HSS manual fill.
35% crop (top, right and a little from the bottom), small CCW rotation. Denoise5>Lr5>adjust5 (topaz) @60% blend.
I'm fairly happy with how this turned out, would prefer to have a little more left edge image area as the tail is a bit close. I have to work on my extension skills to help with that.
As always, thoughts and critiques are welcome.
Edit: In my haste to post this before heading off for the day, I neglected to sharpen for web. :(
Last edited by Randall Farhy; 01-26-2014 at 10:57 AM.
The image does not have an embedded profile, although it appears to be sRGB, as the appearance doesn't change when I assign that profile.
Depending on your browser and monitor, Sandy, you may not be seeing it correctly. Making a Levels layer and holding down the Alt key while just beginning to move the end sliders, there are only a few pixels that are pure white (or black). There might have been a little more detail to be brought out in the yellows -- hard to know from the JPEG. That can be a function of the camera profile used in the RAW converter. I don't know the 7D but many Canons do have issues with reds and yellows with the Adobe Standard profile.
There is useful information in the sticky I posted at the top of this forum on seeing colors correctly on the web (which includes how and why to embed profiles), and the subsequent one on monitor calibration.
Nice head angle and perch. The whites on the feathers look a little blown out but that could just be my monitor. I've always limited myself when using flash to the synch speed, but you've motivated me to try HSS. Any tips? Jeff
Dianne, I don't know if you were responding to me-but I am on a PC. I am using Firefox that is up to date and reconfigured firefox as you described in the color management article you wrote (which was very informative-thanks).
Thanks everyone for the responses and critiques. sRGB was the profile used for the Jpeg output file in LR5. The whites on the upper wing do register 246- 248 using color pic, however they do lack detail so it's possible they're blown, one of the little niggles I'm still wrestling with when it
comes to fill flash outdoors. The Yellows near this same spot also appear a little hot. Diane is correct-I've also found the 7D tends to clip (think it's the correct term) yellows, orange and reds as exposure has to be very close to spot on or they start to look artificial. Adjusting saturation
helps but only goes so far. That said, I did add a touch of brightness as I've noticed images viewed on random monitors lean toward the dark side even though they look fine on my editing machines, which are Dell Ultra-sharps. (Budget was a concern at the time over the NEC that most
seem to prefer.) Jeff: All I can say is practice-I normally use manual mode for the camera and a single flash, which generally ranges from 1/8 to 3/4 power in ettl. depending on subject distance and shutter/ISO combo. A lot depends on prevailing light and location conditions (is the
subject brightly lit with a shaded bg, for instance). In this situation I meter for the scene and under expose
by 1/3 or so depending on the subject. The sensor's dynamic range and post processing software give a lot of leeway. There is probably a formula out there somewhere for how much each increment in SS (above the regular sync speed) equates to, but I haven't found one and I don't
believe it's uniformly proportional. Experiment indoors, tethered if possible just to get a feel for distance and output. When I'm outside I will test fire several shots of the perch at different power settings and go from there. At the time these shots were taken I only had one flash to work
with, I've since acquired a couple more units and plan to use them off camera, ganged with a diffuser for a softer effect. Kelby training has a couple of helpful video tutorials on the subject as well. the one thing I will say is that I didn't start using HSS early enough because of commentary on
various forums about a single unit being ineffective in brighter conditions at higher shutter speeds, which I later found out to be somewhat erroneous. Hope this helps-R
This one looks a little more contrasty -- not sure I can see a big difference in the highlight areas, but no huge deal in any case. Still a very cute little bird!
The "cure" for the Canon red-yellow oversaturation is to go to the Camera Calib tab and choose a profile other than Adobe Std. Some will be awful, a couple usually better. Go for an undersaturated look, then increase Sat in the Basic tab. But increase the actual Sat slider last, after all the tonal stuff, which will also increase saturation if it increases contrast.
HSS works by firing a short burst of very rapid pulses while the shutter is open, thus decreasing power / brightness. There must be a table somewhere but I just set M flash power and dial it in by trial and error. With a little experience, 2-3 iterations will do it. It is very effective for small, close subjects.
A Better Beamer will increase the flash power by about 3X.
I too was put off using HSS thinking the output would be too low. I will definitely give it a try when I want to use faster SS. I suppose using the Beamer will help offset the loss of power some. I have also used trial and error when using flash and figured that was from my lack of understanding. good to see that others work in similar fashion. Jeff
I neglected to mention -- I don't know about Nikon or any others but Canon will fire a low power pre-flash in ETTL mode -- "evaluative thru the lens", to evaluate the exposure needed. There's a good summary in the Wikipedia entry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_flash_system.
This will often startle a bird into a jump and that's what you will catch the split second later when the flash fires to make the exposure. Manual mode will avoid this.
I agree with the comment so far but overall think this is a nice image.
My personal preference would be for slightly more room around the bird but that may just be me.
Do you find using flash scares any of your subjects? I have mostly avoided it due to some people saying it scares off the subject.
Iain, I wrestled with the thought of startling the birds for a while before actually trying it. While it does seem to make them jump (not always, just more often than not) it doesn't tend to scare them off. They will often settle right back in, or head for the feeder and return for more. The picture posted earlier of the Goldfinch feasting on a shrub was taken in the wild, there were more than 30 flash exposures taken while he was feeding, it didn't seem to phase him one bit.
I've had the same experience. I like to shoot birds on a staging perch at out feeders, and the best light is early morning light on distant BG trees with the birds in the shade. I set up 2-3 flashes off-camera (one main, 1-2 for filling shadows). The power is low but I don't see the birds acting like they are bothered at all. I'll see the occasional startle reflex if I do a test fire while watching the birds (I can't see it looking thru the viewfinder as the mirror blacks out that brief time period). But they settle down again and don't seem perturbed. In fact I've had to cover the flashes as they will use them for perches.
And I've used a Better Beamer quite a bit in the field with no evidence that it was bothering the birds.
Backyard Bird
