High Key or Drawing

[Stephen Keene (Plumviewer)]

Having seen some good high key images here lately I set out to try my hand at making a high key "drawing". EOS-1d Mark III with EF 600 f/4 IS and EX 2x II. The Yellowlegs were strongly backlighted by bright afternoon sun. Spot metered off bird and used plus 2 and 2/3 exposure compensation. S curved levels adjustment after kind of tacking down the middle. Tried to follow "Chas"s" instruction for adding a frame, but he must be using a PC. I got a frame by increasing canvas size by 2 pixels in each dimension then chose a yellow brown fill pattern. I'm happy with what I got, (although I prefer it at 200%) I like the serendipitous way the bent grasses parallel the bills. Hope you also like it.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the idea, setting and angle. It looks a bit washed out on my monitor and the grass in the middle is a bit jagged. Thanks for sharing!

[Arthur Morris]

I like it wishing only that the bill of the front bird were a bit more defined. Your description of the metering sounds a bit off. If you spot metered the bird and opened up 2 2/3 stops then the birds themselves would be way over-exposed...

[Stephen Keene (Plumviewer)]

I like it wishing only that the bill of the front bird were a bit more defined.

Your description of the metering sounds a bit off. If you spot metered the bird and opened up 2 2/3 stops then the birds themselves would be way over-exposed...

I should have known better. I spot metered my first few frames, but those I liked were evaluative + 2 2/3. I was aware of the front bird's deficiency. Only 90 days into digital exposures I haven't yet explored masking. Pretty soon I'll be into fixing such things.

Another mistake I made was posting the wrong image. This one is less sharpened and isn't as jagged as Axel pointed out