Back lit pied wagtail - Does this work?

[Iain Barker]

Last weekend on a visit to the coast I came across this Pied Wagtail looking for insects on the piles of weeds washed up by recent storms.
The bird was strongly back lit by the low winter sun.
Although a little burnt out at the left had side I like the way it was rim lit and I quite like the flared highlights in the background.

I'd love to know what others think of this shot and if you think it works or not?

Nikon D7000 300mm AF + 1.4 tc. 1/320 sec f5.6 ISO 400.

WB, crop, levels and sharpening in lightroom.

[Don Nelson]

Artie always says "point your shadow at the bird", and I find that a good thing to remember when I am photographing birds.
So, that being said, do you have a chance to go back down to your local beach and work with this species again? certainly is a fine specimen deserving of another shot.

There is also a really good tutorial on "head angle" that I have found useful -- http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...le-Fine-Points.

You've certainly got a good start on getting low/close as well as getting good backgrounds, so keep this up. Give it another try if you can go back and work some more with subjects like this!

[Doug West]

I would crop at least half off the bottom. Too much ground for me. Maybe crop a little
off the left hand side also.

The flared highlights...I don't like them. They're just distracting to me.

The actual execution of the back light I think is good. I think with my cropping suggestions,
you'll like the image even more.

You could try and lighten the bird a little more, but you'll probably start running into noise if you go overboard.

Doug

[Ian McHenry]

Hi Iain
One of my favourite British Birds.
I agree with Doug about the foreground.
Here's my take on it with reduced F/G but just a tad darker.
Cheers: Ian Mc

[Diane Miller]

I think it works for what it is -- a backlit bird -- but there are limits on a subject like that. You did get a reasonable amount of detail in the bird, and as Doug says, you probably can't go much further without noise. I like Ian's crop, as the area he removed didn't contribute much interest.

I think a backlit subject works best when there is other interest in the frame - an elegant tree branch for a perch with an interesting BG -- something like that, where the bird is not the only interest.

The highlights on the bird are quite blown out -- there are ways to hold them down while bringing up the shadows in LR, especially in 4 or 5. How far did you go with the Highlights and Shadows sliders? And I see a lot of what appears to be chromatic aberration -- especially noticeable around the blown out piece of grass in the lower left corner and on the edge of the highlight on the bird. That should also be correctable in LR.

[Iain Barker]

Thanks for all your comments.

Don, I agree that having the light coming from behind will normally give the best lighting but I also think it is good to experiment a bit sometimes. Maybe this time it didn't quite pay off.

I agree with all comments that a tighter crop may have been better.
Ian I think I would also take a little off the left if cropping as you have, I was just trying not to crop too much on my original post.

Diane I am currently using Lightroom 3 as I still have Windows XP at the moment and this is the highest version of Lightroom supported by XP. I am looking into upgrading to a newer version of windows for the sole reason of upgrading Lightroom. The exposure is quite near the default and the highlights are blown to the point where I can't seem to reduce them.
The chromatic aberration is something I have noticed when using my teleconvetor in images with high contrast in the oof areas. I didn't try with this image but with other image I have struggled to correct it using the sliders in Lightroom. Any pointers you can give me on correcting that would be greatly appreciated, especially the Defringe options as I have no idea which one should be selected when.

Iain

[Diane Miller]

I didn't know XP wouldn't run later versions of LR, but if the computer will take an OS upgrade, LR 4 or 5 is well worth it -- there is much more shadow and highlight recovery possible.

TC's do contribute to CA. And in this case it does look a bit odd -- normally you'll see red on one side and green on the other, or yellow-blue. A newer LR may (or may not!) have a better lens profile, including the TC.

I don't remember what the options looked like in LR3 but they changed a bit somewhere along the line. It's a problem I rarely see (I have removal turned on by default in my import settings) and when it isn't auto corrected I just fiddle with sliders to see if I can improve things.

Maybe someone else can offer sounder advice!

[Randall Farhy]

Took a shot at this one using a custom preset in Photomatrix, then to LR5 for cropping and a +35 highlight adjustment on the face. The preset softens the light to give a muted, softer effect. Based on the results from the small file, I feel the original file might have enough information to pretty much save the blown backlight edge.

Edit-Decided to do more on the overall bird with LR5 brushes -brighten exposure .38, highlights +40, darken rim edge, darken shadows etc.

[Diane Miller]

This one is going in a direction I like!

[Iain Barker]

Hi Randall

Thanks for your repost. I think that even though the intensity of the highlights has been reduced there is just no detail left in those areas. I have tried adjusting the highlight on the original raw and was just never happy with the result. The repost also seems to lack contrast a little.

Iain

[Randall Farhy]

Iain- the highlights might very well be gone, can't be certain without seeing the original-either way, they can be saved with some work (I wouldn't do it for every image-just ones that have something extra special to them or as a practice excercise)- you could import detail and tonality from a similar region using the tools in PS and opacity tweaks, then blending them in with the adjustment brush in LR5 if necessary. As for the contrast-that's what the Photomatrix tool was set to adjust. Doing so takes alot of the noise out of an image that needs help, especially in shadow areas. One can always go to LR and bring some of it back with the local adjustment brush in desired areas...I was in a hurry when I worked on this, I'll revisit it later tonight and see what further tweaking will bring out-just keep in mind that this is a small file so it may not be as subtle as we'd like.

[Randall Farhy]

Ok, keep in mind this is also a learning experience for myself. I went back to LR5, first focusing attention on separating the background and subject through the use of color temperature. Brushes were used to warm the background closer to the original and cool off the subject, telling the eye what it wants to see, essentially a bird in shadow. I then went to the bird and used several local brushes to work the various tones with highlight, +exposure, contrast, clarity and desaturation to reduce noise that came back when I cooled it off and boosted the exposure. Sharpness was also applied to the bird. Most local adjustments were minor in nature nothing more than +/-15 I believe. There's also a minor edge vignette for effect.

It's not perfect, the highlight ridges need work that the small file won't allow and removal of that blown branch low left would be better than recovering it the way I did.

[Randall Farhy]

Just ran the above image through a mild Topaz Clarity custom preset for a little more pop, starting to get a little noisy but I think it's an improvement on the original. Last re-post for this thread.

RE: Subject separation and brushes- on the step where I brushed in the background warmth, I deliberately let the brush blend the highlight ridge on left of the bird to add the same value as the background, this added a more natural appearance to the highlight.