Black-capped Chickadee

[Desmond Chan]

D300 200-400@400 on tripod; manual exposure mode, ISO 1600 f4 1/5000 sec.

I have a similar one here:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=21353


You comments will be greatly appreciated !!

Thank you for your time and patience !!!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Great colours and sharpness Desmond. Did you use a flash?

[Desmond Chan]

Great colours and sharpness Desmond. Did you use a flash?

No flash, like most of the time :o:o

[Gus Hallgren]

Absolutely Gorgeous, Desmond, your very best . . . I love it.

Thanks for sharing

Uncle Gus

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Excellent Desmond. Very good details on the bird. Also great head angle.
Congrats,

[Alfred Forns]

Mighty fine Desmond !!! Appealing and beautiful All you could have done differently is keeping the head from merging with the branch I like it a lot !!!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

So Desmond I have to ask you if you did anything to the whites in this photo, because the blacks look so well exposed. From what I am reading it is hard to expose for both B & W at the same time.
Really like this one.

[SeanKP]

Splendid shot Desmond. Pin sharp and the exposure is spot on.

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Desmond,
Very lovely capture - congrats on this one!
Regards,
Nicki

[Gus Cobos]

Desmond,
NO LASHES FOR YOU...:D I like this very much. you did well, proud of you...:cool:

[Desmond Chan]

So Desmond I have to ask you if you did anything to the whites in this photo, because the blacks look so well exposed. From what I am reading it is hard to expose for both B & W at the same time.

I didn't do anything particular to the whites other than burned it a bit to maintain the details after I had increased the overall contrast of the image in photoshop.This is a cropped image - it's not that difficult to find out once you know the size of the bird and the focal length used to take the shot plus some trigonometry - and the black and white parts of the chickadee actually make up only a small part of the photo. Green, which this image has a lot, is close to mid grey. And the light is not harsh. So I'd say it s not really a tricky situation to get the correct exposure even you use auto exposure mode. In my case, I took test shots to check the exposure while waiting and made the exposure settings accordingly. As long as the overall exposure of the entire image is correct, then the exposure of the smaller black and white parts should be fine. And if you really want to be sure that the whites look the way you want it, you can spot meter the whites, open up a stop or two (that would put the whites in Zone VI or VII in the language of Zone system) and shoot.

You're right in that it is hard to expose for both black and white correctly at the same time and still get details in both areas. That's why some wedding photographers use Fujifilm S5 for shots of bride and groom, with the bride wearing white and the groom in black, to ensure that they would get details in the white gown and the black suits :D:D

I prefer to use an incident light meter in this kind of B&W situation.


Thanks everyone for the comments !!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Thanks for taking the time to explain Desmond, again great pic.

[Gail Spitler]

Well done! Like this composition better than the sister image posted at the other forum.
Great job on a difficult species to photograph
Gail