Forster's Tern at Little Estero

[Bob Blanchard]

Captured yesterday morning at Little Estero. These birds are REALLY tough to expose well. very black blacks, and shiny whites. Histogram says this is good, but I'd like to see more detail in the blacks, and a little less of that shiny white. Nothing blown on this, but adjusting in photoshop takes away from one side or the other. Suggestions?

ETA: Changed ID from Forster's to Least Tern ID.

Canon 1DsMII, 600mm f/4, 1/500, f/14, ISO 200

[Alfred Forns]

Fully agree with your assessment Bob !!! I think if you had more room for the bird it would actually look different (exposure wise) by having more of the light color sand. Might try brightening just a tad to make him jump !!! Do like the pose and light angle very much !!!

btw your focal length flatten the image enough that I like the f setting. Bg looks good !!!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good self critique exposure-wise. I'm sure a bit of fill-flash would have helped with those blacks. I like the broken shells strewn about.

[John Chardine]

HDR if the image is static!! Yeh, right. Actually with your Canon body you may be able to fire off 3 or 5 images quick enough to get away with it. Is the 1Ds Mk II fast enough?

[Maxis Gamez]

Very nice profile head pose and catchligtht. I think this is a Least Tern.

[Bob Blanchard]

Maxis is right. It's a Least Tern. It has a white forehead. My bad on the ID.

[Doug Brown]

You've got a fair amount of detail in the blacks that is easily recoverable in PS. Using the Shadows/Highlights tool, I dragged the Shadows slider to 28% and the Highlights slider to 10%. Here is the result.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the pose and details. Have you tried to do most of the exposure and curves processing in your RAW converter? It might work better than in PS.

[Gus Cobos]

Nice capture, I like the head turn...Like the repost...:)