Mute Swan -- exposure question

[Michael Hansen]

Canon 7D2, 100-400II @300mm. ISO 400. 1/100 @f/7.1

Since my PP involves my question, I'll kind of merge the two here: The EC on my camera was still set at +2/3 from last time I was out. After a burst or two, I saw that the images were well overexposed. I brought it down to 0, same thing...finally, I ended up at -1 1/3 and STILL overexposing the whites on this swan. I didn't have much time with the birds, so I had to hope that it wasn't too bad and could be salvaged at home.

So, even after LR did its auto thing, I was still clipping. Here's where the PP comes in: I lowered exposure by about half a stop, and whites the full -100. I was just able to salvage most of the whites here. My question is: Why on an overcast day, with the river so dark there would I have to go at least EC -1 1/3, and probably more like -2 since I was still clipping severely? I have ABP II open just to make sure I didn't remember it wrong, and I don't think I did. I may very well be understanding it wrong. This is a vertical crop of a scene with another mute swan and more dark river.

Anyway, the PP finished with Dfine -> Color Efex -> sharpening.

Thanks to Diane for pushing me to actually USE LR sliders and read that book. At least I'm finally starting to understand some of it.



Mike

[Diane Miller]

As you know, the whites here are blown beyond recovery. It sounds like you are using one of the auto-exposure modes in camera. With a white bird against a darker BG, unless the bird virtually fills the frame, the camera's exposure will be influenced too much by the darker BG, trying to bring it up to a normal exposure and thus overexposing the whites. You should be able to compensate for this by dialing in negative exposure compensation, which you did.

But you aren't seeing a reduction in the whites because you are using auto exposure in LR, which is doing the same thing the camera would have done without the compensation. It will rarely get things right. Turn it off and use the sliders manually.

There is also a setting in the LR pref's > presets for apply auto tone adjustments. Turn that off. If it is the default, someone should be hung by their thumbnails.

After turning those off, you should be able to see the exposures you actually made, and hopefully one of the compensations will give you a good file. None of the adjustments are actually made until you go to PS with a file.

[Michael Hansen]

Ahh, ok. That makes sense. I'll make that change to LR immediately. Thanks again, Diane! You've been a huge help. I would have never have figured this out, or even thought to look.

If I get anything decent, I'll re-post.



Mike

[Diane Miller]

Would love to see what you can do with it. A subject like this is a good situation to learn manual exposure. Assuming the bird will stay in the same lighting but might cruise around against varying BGs, you determine the best exposure for the bird, using the histogram / blinkies and some quick experimentation, and set that for the session. The same exposure should work for any subject in the same lighting.

But you need to have the in-camera settings so that the on-the-fly JPEG on the back screen isn't overcooked to "look good." Settings should be basically neutral, with no amping up of contrast or saturation. (A little sharpening is OK if you zoom into the back screen to check focus. It won't be as good as the same display in the raw converter, though.)

[Michael Hansen]

I hope I can do something! I'm still looking through these presets and then I'll want to go through my camera to make sure the jpeg isn't overcooked with in-camera settings. Truth be told, I hardly ever look at the jpg on camera except for blinkies because it's too small for me to judge, especially when I have the histogram and blinkies on (which I always do).

I'll definitely make a note of this though for the future. Would have loved to have worked in manual for this, had I known, but when I said I didn't have much time with these birds it's because I was on the way to the store when I glanced over and happened to see them. They were at a boat ramp, and it was a boat that ultimately chased them away -- sooner rather than later. AT LEAST I started making a habit of taking my camera with me when I go anywhere, so that's a plus among a sea of minuses for this episode :) But like you figured, I had it in an auto-exposure mode (Av), and if I had to pick one setting to leave my camera in for a quick shot like this, given my usual shooting conditions, it would be Av with EC +2/3, just like I had it in. But I've come to find out that that was at least 2 stops off in this case, which is why I was so shocked by the massive swing. Thanks again for telling me why.

I'm going to go through a LR manual and check into these defaults and all that so I have all of that right for the future. Thanks again for pointing that out, and we'll see what happens with the swan!


P.S. I reported that mute swan sighting to eBird and probably made the Illinois Rare Bird Alert list for it. Mute Swans are an exotic species that started out on the east coast and their range has gradually expanded westward. If you look them up on allaboutbirds you can see how spotty their range is. That may have been my only chance for a while! :(

[Don Lacy]

Hi Michael, Diane covered the exposure nicely my only suggestion is to leave enough room at the bottom to account for the virtual feet in your comp.

[Michael Hansen]

Thanks, Don, I appreciate the feedback! I still have a little bit of room at the bottom, so that's a good thing. Unfortunately, I couldn't get everything back as far as the whites go, so I'm going to chalk this one up to a lesson learned. Some lessons just have to be learned the hard way :)


Take care, and thanks again! I'll be back with more...as soon as this weather lets up!
Mike

[Michael Hansen]

Diane,

Just so you know that I took your words to heart and did give it a sincere try, I offer this:




I selectively decreased exposure on the swan, got a combination of highlight and shadow adjustments that I liked, and still ended up with a featureless white patch on the back behind the swan's neck. I tried to selectively darken that patch, and it just ended up looking "dirty" with no improvement in detail. So I left it alone. Nothing is clipping anymore, and all of the data appears to be within the bounds of the histogram, but I don't know what that means (with my limited experience) because I still have the featureless patch that I mentioned.

I was surprised that the bird's head and neck appeared "dirty" after I did these (and other) things, but I looked at some images online, and those that weren't overexposed like my original showed the same coloration.

So, that's it for me on this one for now. Thanks for recommending that book! I've been reading and practicing and redoing some older photos while I sit and wait out this wind and rain.

Thanks again for your help!


Mike

[Diane Miller]

It's an improvement over the original post. Whites can be difficult. That remaining white area may just have been overexposed beyond recovery and/or just featureless beyond the sensor's ability to distinguish the brightest tones. LR will recover whites as much as possible when the image is opened (without you seeing any change in the sliders). If they show as not blown out in the initial histogram, you should have some leeway with the Highlights slider, but sometimes it isn't much, and you can certainly go too far and get grays. The brightest tones may not show well on the histogram. You can have a closer look by using the White Balance eyedropper and moving it around in the brightest areas and looking at the numbers under the histogram. If you bring the Whites slider down you will get lower contrast and at some point whites will go gray. That is one slider I almost never touch, except to go positive with it to add contrast.

Blacks look too light in the area behind the beak, so you may have some sliders not balanced the best. (Or just reflections there.) With a high contrast image I'll start with the Shadows and Highlights, then look at the other sliders, but every image is different. This one may have just been in lighting that couldn't be managed. I'd suggest putting it aside and revisiting it after you have a little more experience.

I've seen a lot of swans with dirty-looking, yellowish necks, but something isn't right on the sides, with the cyan and magenta tones.

I'd consider cropping quite a bit off the top.

[Michael Hansen]

It's an improvement over the original post. Whites can be difficult. That remaining white area may just have been overexposed beyond recovery and/or just featureless beyond the sensor's ability to distinguish the brightest tones. LR will recover whites as much as possible when the image is opened (without you seeing any change in the sliders). If they show as not blown out in the initial histogram, you should have some leeway with the Highlights slider, but sometimes it isn't much, and you can certainly go too far and get grays. The brightest tones may not show well on the histogram. You can have a closer look by using the White Balance eyedropper and moving it around in the brightest areas and looking at the numbers under the histogram. If you bring the Whites slider down you will get lower contrast and at some point whites will go gray. That is one slider I almost never touch, except to go positive with it to add contrast.

Blacks look too light in the area behind the beak, so you may have some sliders not balanced the best. (Or just reflections there.) With a high contrast image I'll start with the Shadows and Highlights, then look at the other sliders, but every image is different. This one may have just been in lighting that couldn't be managed. I'd suggest putting it aside and revisiting it after you have a little more experience.

I've seen a lot of swans with dirty-looking, yellowish necks, but something isn't right on the sides, with the cyan and magenta tones.

I'd consider cropping quite a bit off the top.

Thanks, Diane!

I agree, the whites have been tough, but I will revisit it after I have some more experience, as you suggest. Also, thanks for the info on LR recovering whites without me seeing any change in the sliders. That helps too, knowing how it works internally. I picked up some of that in the book you recommended. As for the rest of your critique regarding the grays and lighter black areas, I'll keep that in mind as well when I come back to this one. Like you, I also noticed a strange-looking cyan/magenta hue. It was a lot worse before, but I obviously have to get better at recognizing (and correcting) it at lower levels.

Thanks again! You've been a HUGE help!


Mike

[Glennie Passier]

Thank you Mike and Diane! This has been a most interesting and educational thread. There is so much to take in here.

[Diane Miller]

Of course you could do a selection (by painting a quick mask) and desaturate the strange colors on the bird's side, but the right way to deal with it is to prevent such color artifacts in the first place.

Are you using any filters over the front of the lens? Is the lens hood in place to prevent light hitting the front of the lens? And the slot that lets you rotate a polarizer closed?

[Michael Hansen]

Of course you could do a selection (by painting a quick mask) and desaturate the strange colors on the bird's side, but the right way to deal with it is to prevent such color artifacts in the first place.

Are you using any filters over the front of the lens? Is the lens hood in place to prevent light hitting the front of the lens? And the slot that lets you rotate a polarizer closed?

First: You're welcome, Glennie! If you stick around long enough, I'm liable to ask every question about photography possible :)


Diane,

I'm not using any filters, the lens hood is always on, and the slot is closed. I use the lens hood religiously, not only for what you mentioned, but it also serves as my lens cap as I'm out trekking through the wilderness :) I'll look into the desaturation method that you mentioned, but I think once I get the experience, I'm likely to try it from scratch, and actually record what I do (as a memory aid). You mentioned the blacks a post or two ago, and I see I brought those in too much, which may very well be what you're seeing on the bill area. Thanks again!


Mike

[Don Lacy]

HI Michael, You are asking more then the sensor and converter can do the whites in the Raw capture were overexposed past the saturation level of the pixels there for they recorded no detail and no amount of fiddling with sliders are going to show any. When exposing for a white bird I personally do not want any blinkies and prefer to err on the side of underexposing them ever so slightly. Then in post I like to have them at a tonal value around 240.

[Michael Hansen]

HI Michael, You are asking more then the sensor and converter can do the whites in the Raw capture were overexposed past the saturation level of the pixels there for they recorded no detail and no amount of fiddling with sliders are going to show any. When exposing for a white bird I personally do not want any blinkies and prefer to err on the side of underexposing them ever so slightly. Then in post I like to have them at a tonal value around 240.

Yeah, I figured that's what happened. Lesson learned. And I will remember your advice here as well. That's the first time I've ever been so far off with exposure. It kinda shocked me. :) But shocked in a good way, since I'll definitely remember this.


Thanks,
Mike

[Diane Miller]

I asked Michael to send me the raw file and a quick look at it in LR/ACR confirms the whites are too overexposed for recovery. The initial histogram shows a significant spike at the right end. The Highlights slider can bring it down, but bringing the brightest tones down to this extreme can do damage to the next-lower tones. That adjustment is a very powerful tool but can be used too strongly on a bad file.

I think I see the exposure problem here -- the original file is horizontal with the swan's head in the center of the frame. I'm guessing the center focus point was being used, and exposure is linked to the focus point. If the exposure was set to Evaluative metering, the meter saw a fairly small white area and a lot of dark water around it, and was biased toward giving a middle exposure to the water, overexposing the whites. Exposure compensation was apparently not enough to bring it down enough.

The subject would have been quite contrasty anyway, but it would have been better to center the focus point/meter on the swan's body, and try to use enough depth of field to get the head sharp. Or go to manual exposure, set for the whites. A couple of test shots would get the setting.

LR/ACR can bring out amazing detail in whites if they are properly exposed. Same for darks. But both at the same time may be asking for more information than the camera's dynamic range can provide.

[Michael Hansen]

Gotcha. That's helpful!

You nailed it on everything you "guessed" at. :) I was using evaluative metering, center point focus, AND I did back off on the swan a bit to have room for some nice wing and neck stretches that I clipped in the few frames prior to that (they move pretty fast when they want to!). So backing off made even more dark water "appear" probably exacerbating the condition.

Thank you so much to all, and thank you especially Diane for letting me put that on your server for you to have a look at. Lesson learned, and since I was able to discuss it here, it's a lesson that I'll remember in the future!


Regards,
Mike

[Don Lacy]

These situations are why I shot 99% of my images in manual mode a few test shots to dial in the exposure then I can concentrate on composition and behaviors for the next 40 minutes to an hour re adjust exposure for the change in light and start shooting again. Many beginners are intimidated by manual and falsely believe the aperture or TV are easier and will give them better results when in fact they require more knowledge and constant attention to use accurately.

[Michael Hansen]

Hi Don,

I still would have gotten it wrong if I was in manual. Evaluative metering is evaluative metering, right? I just would have had some different buttons and dials to fiddle with to compensate. I'm reading an article now on Digital Camera World's website that reiterates what Diane told me: Namely that bright or dark backgrounds and bright or dark subjects can cause "unexpected results" which is exactly what I got, especially since I had some of both. :) She also mentioned my autofocus point, which this article also states more emphasis is given to in evaluative metering exposure decisions. I took test shots, but as I mentioned, I didn't have much time with the bird. It went from EC +2/3 -> 0 -> -1 1/3 -> birdies go bye-bye

I'm not intimidated by manual. I use it when I'm in situations that you describe, usually when I'm camped out in one place with a tripod and big lens. But that's not the case for me 95% of the time. I do more walking photography than anything, and walk through dense areas of forest, then take a few steps into lighter areas, then back to dark, with the camera pointed up towards areas of more light (and woodpeckers) and down towards the shadows (and wood thrushes)....basically a manual mode nightmare. I don't find that fun at all or productive for me to constantly be fidgeting with my camera. What I will do is set my camera to ISO 400 and Av on a clear day, and ISO 800 and Av on a cloudy day and start hiking. What does that do for me? If I'm pointing the camera at eye-level or even slightly downward (areas of less light), my SS is still high enough for small, jerky, perched birds. And if there's an osprey or red-tailed hawk flying overhead? Well, raising the camera toward the sky (and light) gets me the SS I need to capture that 95% of the time as well. It's a piece of cake and nothing to fidget with, and I cover all of my bases the vast majority of the time. There's a spot on the river where that technique gets me a SS of 1/320 pointed at lazily swimming ducks, 1/2500 pointed at flying ducks at the treetops, and 1/4000 or more pointed at soaring bald eagles, all with touching exactly zero buttons or dials. And I still have time to take in the sights and smells!

If the sun comes out, or vice versa, I'll change as needed.

And if I find myself needing to set ISO at 1600 for any length of time, then I'm probably not out that day anyway, or else I'm in the middle of tick paradise in some forest with a flash and Better Beamer mounted to my camera, in manual mode with a SS of 1/250 and ISO 400 or something.

I'm sure there's a lot wrong with this approach, not fine tuning every shot to 1/3 of a stop, but it's worth it because this lets me focus on the most important part: getting the image in the first place.

Of course, this only applies to me and my area -- the typical lighting, typical backgrounds, subjects, etc -- and certainly not everyone, everywhere.


Thanks, Don!
Mike

[Don Lacy]

I do not have time right now to write out a full response so I will quick go over the Swan image and how I would have approached it shooting manual. First I would have already had my aperture and ISO set to were I wanted them when I came upon the Swan I would have set up and adjusted the shutter speed to get my meter set to 0 and taken a test shot checked the histogram and adjusted the shutter speed as needed to get a good histogram this might take one or two more test shots now I am good to just concentrate on composition.
This whole process usually takes just a few seconds now if I had been in aperture priority with evaluative metering as the Swan moved around it's very likely that the camera would keep changing exposure base off the metering for example if the Swan moved towards you the meter will pick up more of the white on the scene and adjust shutter speed to compensate for that and you would need to dial in compensation to get the white correct and if the Swan moved away from you the camera would again change the shutter speed since it is now reading more of the surrounding area and you would end up overexposing the Swan unless you dialed in negative exposure which is what happen here.
In manual as long as the swan was not swimming in and out of shadows no further exposure adjustments are needed once you get it dialed in and if the Swan was in and out of shadows I can adjust as needed or more likely wait for the Swan to be in the light I had set up for. Even when I am running and gunning my goal is to create compelling images and once I find a subject I want to work I will spend as much time on it as needed to get the image very rarely do I miss images because I took the time to dial in the exposure and even rarer do I delete and image do to bad exposure.

[Michael Hansen]

Hi Don,

Thanks for sharing how you approach a shot.

I still think, in the end, it's just your greater degree of experience that would have gotten you the shot, rather than what mode I do or don't shoot in. You have control of three variables in manual: aperture, ISO, and SS, and I have control of three variables in Av: aperture, ISO, and SS (by way of EC). As you more than know, there's really no other way to determine exposure than those three. But I do see one positive to manual now that you've had me rethink it, and that is that I can choose to ignore the meter "blips" in manual, whereas I don't have that choice in Av. If I don't like what SS it gives me, then I have to either compensate, as you mentioned, or take the shot anyway. In a previous post, I mentioned how I set ISO at 400 or 800 (in round numbers, not worrying about partial stops) to give myself a little breathing room for the SS in just those situations. I have zero problem with how the 7D2 images come out at ISO 800.

Anyway, I went back over the swan and will post my last, final, and that's it image. :) I started from scratch, kept in mind a lot of advice, not least of which was Diane's, and ended up with something that I'm relatively happy with. In brief, I decreased the exposure until I had no more highlight blinkies (2 stops on the dot), and then got to work on the shadows. My reasoning behind this was that I only REALLY had to worry about those 3 small black spots on the swan recovering that way, than I would coming from the other direction -- in which case the swan looked like a giant cotton ball, but whiter. I hope that I fixed that area behind the bill that Diane had thought looked a bit gray.

Am I going to delete it? Absolutely not. Is it going to grace the cover of National Geographic EVER? Absolutely not. But I learned a lot, again from Diane and others, on the topic of recovery -- what can and can't be done -- so I consider it a fantastic lesson. I'd go so far as to say I'm glad I overexposed this swan. :)

But it won't happen again!

Thank you for your help as well, Don!

Mike

[Don Lacy]

Michael, What you are missing is that the camera is constantly changing the exposure in Av mode if your subject is moving or if you simply recompose the shot it is evening out the exposure to middle tones. Again using your Swan image a proper exposure for this image would be about a stop lower then what it was taken at so to properly expose the image you would have had to dial in -1 exposure compensation no problem you check the histogram see the blinkies and the spiked highlights dial in the negative exposure value and shoot again now you have the proper exposure. All is good but now the Swan moves closer to you nothing else has changed except that the Swan is now bigger in the frame your camera since it is in Av mode now has a different exposure reading since it is now seeing more bright tones so it automatically changes your shutter speed to compensate even though by doing so it is now underexposing the image the light has not changed only thing that changed is what the camera was metering. So now to get the proper exposure you have to dial the exposure compensation back to 0 or +1 by doing so you will also notice that the shutter speed is now back to the same value it was when you had -1 compensation. Manual eliminates having to constantly adjust exposure compensation once you have the right values you can happily shoot away until the light on the subject changes.

A good way to demonstrate this is to go outside with a zoom lens on a clear day pick a white or black subject stuffed animals work good since they do not runaway put your camera in Av start at 100mm with the subject filling about a 1/4 of the frame leave the compensation at 0 and slowly zoom in you will notice the shutter speed changing as the subject starts to fill the frame now put your camera in manual start at 100 adjust aperture and shutter speed so the bar reads 0 and start zooming in you will notice that the bar will start moving the same way the shutter speed was changing. When in Av your actual exposure was changing as the cameras metering changed in manual your exposure stayed constant while the metering changed.
Evaluative metering is really good at averaging out the scene and for most of your images this is what you want but it can be fooled and you need to dial in compensation in Av you need to be constantly be aware of this and change the compensation as the metering changes do to subject movement while in manual you only need to set it once until the light changes.

I shoot in manual because it is just easier to get the correct exposure and keep it while the action is going on I recently had some Plovers feeding in front of me after getting down in the mud and slowly working closer I dialed in the exposure in manual mode and for the next half hour I had images that ranged from the plovers occupying about half the frame to 3/4 portraits every single one of them where properly exposed without a single white feather overexposed if I was in Av I would have been constantly changing the exposure compensation and either would have missed images form checking exposure while the action was going on or from overexposing them.

[Michael Hansen]

Hi Don,

Oh I understand all that now that you explained it this way. It forms the basis for why people tend to avoid wearing dark colors like black in the summer -- different colors absorb and/or reflect different amounts of light/heat. So different amounts of those colors (bigger or smaller in frame) affect how much light is reflected back to the camera's sensor, thus affecting exposure. Completely on board with you there. You were discussing something roughly 4 stops above what I was thinking about so I just missed it. :)

Regarding your plovers: See, I don't have that problem here :) I just moved back to Illinois from Florida not even 6 months ago, and I just haven't had opportunities like that here. I didn't buy my first dslr until about 4 months ago, so I missed most of the nesting season, sat through a summer of flooding, caught the fall migration (mostly warblers, etc), and now all the big parks are essentially closed for hunting and have been since the middle of August (waterfowl areas at least). The parts of these parks that aren't closed are far from being hot spots unless you're looking to park a car, so things like that come in spurts. For the most part, I'm wandering around in and out of thicker and thinner canopy where adjusting for light would be a constant for me. Right now I'm struggling to think of a place (outside of maybe Lake Michigan) where I could consistently find good bird photography opportunities. Right now the best place that comes to mind is my bird feeder :)

Thanks! Glad that I finally caught on to what you were saying. I couldn't put it together there for a while.


Mike

[Don Lacy]

Hi Michael, Glad I was able to explain it for you, and there is nothing wrong with backyard feeder photography with the right set ups and attention to detail and back grounds you can produce some wonderful images Allen Murphy made his name shooting set ups in his backyard that looked natural.

[Michael Hansen]

Thanks, Don!

...and that's probably the next book that I'll buy is his. I've seen some photos here recently using his set-ups/techniques that have been amazing.


Regards,
Mike

[Stuart Philpott]

Mike Diane Don thanks for this thread and the debates,it's brought a greater understanding for me of issues with white and overexposure and reinforced some of what i've leant,which ain't much in the big scheme,just wanted to stop by and say thanks really. Mute are common here
take care
Stu