Cormerant drying and some hopeful help on exposure.

[Stuart Philpott]

This fella is not terribly waterproof,so after a spell hunting get's out of the water and has a **** good shake/ flap and shivers ,almost, while baring his wings to the sun. I started some way off and gradually got closer his movements while drying were vigorous so I tried to keep my shutter speeds high to prevent motion blur. The sun was up a bit higher than I would wish for and roughly behind me and all the time I was trying to ponder exposure and not blow the highlights on the pale areas around the face and bill. Guys i'm right at the bottom of the pile starting out desparately trying to master the camera and not delving into post much as of yet. I have only DPP at this time,I realize what post can do I can see it a mile off but need to start walking before I run .

For discussion I'd like to post two images of this bird I guess what I am trying to figure out is what can possibly be recovered with blown highlights or underexposed shadows once I really start to explore post,my endgame here is the best possible raw capture in camera that I can pull up later and work on when I have chosen some form of post engine. The first image is basically me trying to ettr the second me more trying to not blow the light areas,because obviously I am unsure what can be recovered . I hope this might help others too,of course i'd welcome critique as well but getting sharp images and them being exposed in the best way possible is my real end game here.

Both images are full frame taken at the back of my time with him/her,he he many folks out and my lying almost in the water trying to get that low point of view was raising some eyebrows, what can I say it was bliss for me and smiles for them.The first image is where I believe I might have exposed as close as I could get,I have a few blown highlights in the first image and underexposed shadows in the second. I think I understand ettr we don't want to boost exposure because we boost digital noise when doing so to we somewhat overexpose the raw capture to grab the most detail possible,what I'm struggling with is how much detail i might claw back later.

_70F0515 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr




_70F0511 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

I'll declare the artist in me likes that second image,but I'm trying to be objective and not let him in...as an aside comments on HA would be appreciated. iso set at 1000 f/4.5 it's the shutter I varied shot in manual first image is 1/5000 second 1/800 I do have images between this as I was also experimenting with iso and what dynamic range that might confer interesting that the shot at iso 2000 f/4.5 ss 1/5000 has both blown and underexposed areas.

that's enough from me apart from wishing all the best new year,hope all your collective dreams come true

take care

Stu

[Diane Miller]

Hi Stu,

You got a nice pose with a nice BG, but as you say, exposure is the problem here.

ETTR means to expose as high as you can without blowing out highlights. You can only judge that by the histogram on the back of the camera, not the overall brightness of the screen. And that histogram depends on in-camera settings so keep them neutral or conservative. Don't boost contrast and saturation, in particular. You want to capture the best data -- a raw file is not a finished image.

Not knowing what processing you did here, I can't be sure if your exposure on the first one was too high. Were these just as they came into DPP with no slider moves? But you don't have what I would call blown-out highlights, except on the beak. My experience is that my images come into Lightroom/ACR looking almost identical to DPP, but I find in general I can get more shadow and highlight detail in LR/ACR than in DPP. But even with the image you have here, I think you could darken this one a bit and recover quite a bit more detail when you go to PS. I had a try and got this -- obviously not the best from a JPEG but to give you an idea. I used Nik's Detail Extractor and then did a Curves adjustment layer and pulled down the center. The DE was good for the lighter feathers but made the BG too busy, so I would mask it out except on the bird. I didn't take time to do that here, though. I was surprised that it brought out more detail in the beak than I thought it would.

There are also other ways to bring out shadow and highlight detail.

Underexposing and bringing up the exposure in raw or PS will bring up more noise and is to be avoided where possible, so your second image is probably not going to give you a good result. An underexposed image can be dramatic, but here the bird is too lost against the dark BG. In the first, there is separation. So if I wanted a dark image I would try darkening the first one -- carefully, watching the separation of nearby tones.

If you're having problems with exposure, set your camera to auto-bracket and shoot a burst, then choose the best one later. Of course, the best thing is to avoid harsh light, but sometimes we'd like to take an opportunity that isn't ideal and do what we can with it.

[Diane Miller]

Forgot to mention -- it would be better if there was more room below the tail. Pay attention to edges when you aim!

[Stuart Philpott]

Hey Diane,first thanks for the private guidance on two posts in one thread. Second up regarding your second post I had my uppermost central sensor on the bird's face or eye I wanted to bring the frame higher yes you are so right about the tail,but didn't have a clue how to get there bar guessing a lower point on the bird in the same focal plane,frankly I didn't dare go there, I couldn't fit the wing stretch in in portrait,could you recommend a point I should have aimed at please? As always we don't all work in an ideal world,that is not a get out card it's just I need to work out how to deal with this situation in the future there were very few places I could get to water level.But I don't want this to sound like what I couldn't do,just what I could do

Diane I haven't knowingly done anything at all to either image no sharpening no slider moves ,nothing, they are both just converted to jpeg from dpp by dpp as they came from camera. I felt it would influence replies if I tried to do anything more,I just wanted to focus on the exposure,obviously if someone wanted to comment on head angle or placement in frame ,wonderful i'm all ears. the goal was simply how do we deal with this situation? is it possible? where can I recover those blown areas in post? are they blown too far?

Diane please correct if I am wrong ,i'm very simple, the raw equate to an old skool negative for me, in no way is it a finished product,I just need to master this base stage first. Diane bare with me I'm a painfully slow learner,but i'll keep coming my stubborn streak get me there with time. Hard to convey this!!

Diane I haven't used the histograme while shooting I have the blinkies alert on,so I can also see what i'm capturing and where I have highlights or shadows lacking detail,the only blinkies I could see in the overexposed image were on the beak area and a bit on the branch she's sitting on in the "ettr image". So I think ha repeat think I have grasped your first paragraph fully.

Does nik come in photoshop Diane ? I have heard of it but haven't a clue what it is how it's purchased etc. could you also give me some reading on curves please I have ideas but no real certainty I believe they are being used to bring out mid tone details but might be utterly wrong Ben digging around in ED rec for ages but haven't found curves yet). I'm somewhat reassured from your post that you were able to recover the beak to some extent this was exactly my concern and also why the darker pictures were taken,simply I had more time to think and was hedging my bets. I again believe I understand exactly why i wouldn't want the darker image to work up from in post but artistically that is where i want this image to go at a later date. so I need to treat the background separately,not sharpen it darken it using a mask and then maybe blur it a bit. Yes I see what you mean about how the processing can affect the background it's way too busy in your take as you outlined,but really enlightening for me thanks so much for taking the time to show me this,it means so much when one can actually see it!!

Ahh mate, this is the first time I have been able to take pictures in sunshine for maybe two months, we were out before dawn but found this chap later. I have to tip a nod here to my countrymen who are being flooded out of their homes and for that matter yours whom have problems too. I think most of us here feel like we should have webbed feet, so I think the game plan has to be make the best of it

It's all good Diane we had a ball, a fabulous day, I learnt just a bit more and am doing so now thanks to your kindness,

have the best new year

Stu

[Diane Miller]

Yes, a raw file is similar to a B/W neg that not only has leeway in the development but also in the printing. With digital, development and "printing" are basically both in the raw and PS work. (By printing I don't mean a physical print, which is much less creative and more just technical, as was color printing back in the old days.)

Nik has been bought by Google and they have a suite of very useful software. My favorites are a few of the things in Color Efex Pro, including Detail Extractor; Dfine for noise reduction and Silver Efex for B/W conversion. Viveza has amazing masking abilities also. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

I only use them as plugins for PS but they might work in Lightroom, giving you a TIFF file. But if I'm "rendering" an image it's going to get the full power of PS, with all the layer manipulation possibilities.

Curves is easy to use, and Levels is the "simple" version of it. A web search should give you a lot of tutorials.

I don't remember what your camera is, but it probably has settings for the back LCD to display different information, one of which would be the histogram. It's a light meter on steroids, but the blinkies will do if you don't have a histogram display.

[Glennie Passier]

Stu, This is a very interesting thread. I learn so much from other peoples problems! I always seem to err on the dark side of things, and I prefer the darker image in your OP. Diane has (of course!) lifted the image with her re-post.
I was amazed to read that you have not knowingly done anything in ACR or PS to these images. If I could get a raw image like that, I'd be over the moon. Experiment in ACR with the sliders - Black, white and highlight. I don't use the Exposure slider at all now since Diane has shown me what can be done with the other sliders. If you don't like what has happened to your image, just cancel and start again or set the sliders back to the default. Experiment.

Just an observation - Your second image of the OP, there seems to be a cut line across the bottom from midway to the RHS. Maybe a log or cropped/rotated slightly? You could probably have a go at cloning/patching in some FG there. I like the HA. (He has you in his eye) and I like the pose very much.

Stu, sorry I cant off much in the way of technical advice, other than keep practicing and experimenting.

Happy New Year to you!

[Stuart Philpott]

Yes, a raw file is similar to a B/W neg that not only has leeway in the development but also in the printing. With digital, development and "printing" are basically both in the raw and PS work. (By printing I don't mean a physical print, which is much less creative and more just technical, as was color printing back in the old days.)

Nik has been bought by Google and they have a suite of very useful software. My favorites are a few of the things in Color Efex Pro, including Detail Extractor; Dfine for noise reduction and Silver Efex for B/W conversion. Viveza has amazing masking abilities also. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

I only use them as plugins for PS but they might work in Lightroom, giving you a TIFF file. But if I'm "rendering" an image it's going to get the full power of PS, with all the layer manipulation possibilities.

Curves is easy to use, and Levels is the "simple" version of it. A web search should give you a lot of tutorials.

I don't remember what your camera is, but it probably has settings for the back LCD to display different information, one of which would be the histogram. It's a light meter on steroids, but the blinkies will do if you don't have a histogram display.

Sorry Diane I meant to include this my bad!! Camera is a 1Div lens 300f2.8 plus 1.4 extender (iii) So the rgb histogram is a couple of touches away from the blinkies on a full image on the rear display I currently use. As you pointed out I need to think on framing so up until now i've been using the highlight alerts rather than the histogram I'll try with the rgb histo for a while and see how that goes. I have many faults to contend with Diane here my sole goal was when is a blinkie unusable when have I lost the ability to recover a digital overload

Diane I'll repeat how grateful I am,that you would bestow your time on me

HNY

Stu

[Stuart Philpott]

Stu, This is a very interesting thread. I learn so much from other peoples problems! I always seem to err on the dark side of things, and I prefer the darker image in your OP. Diane has (of course!) lifted the image with her re-post.
I was amazed to read that you have not knowingly done anything in ACR or PS to these images. If I could get a raw image like that, I'd be over the moon. Experiment in ACR with the sliders - Black, white and highlight. I don't use the Exposure slider at all now since Diane has shown me what can be done with the other sliders. If you don't like what has happened to your image, just cancel and start again or set the sliders back to the default. Experiment.

Just an observation - Your second image of the OP, there seems to be a cut line across the bottom from midway to the RHS. Maybe a log or cropped/rotated slightly? You could probably have a go at cloning/patching in some FG there. I like the HA. (He has you in his eye) and I like the pose very much.

Stu, sorry I cant off much in the way of technical advice, other than keep practicing and experimenting.

Happy New Year to you!

Ha me too Glennie someone else's problems is normally mine it seems. Glennie I paint a bit when given time,that guy wants this image dark,but that separation Diane spoke of between Bg and subject is paramount for this one. Glennie I have nothing other than dpp I can't go further at this time,I'm a horrendously slow learner ,but with that comes a hope of getting the base right to build off. Bless you mate the one thing I want is that RAW file to be the best base I can work off to hear you say I'd like to get a raw capture like this is just lovely. Glennie I am unsure of what you can see regarding the the observation of the cut line you can you elucidate for me,both are essentially the same image bar that exposure. But if you would be so kind I'd be very grateful

I guess we've done hpy but have another on me kiddo ,all the luck to you Glennie,but i'm sure you will make your own, I'll chase your tail huh

best

Stu