The capture...

[Adrian David]

This is my first thread on this forum! I hope you'll like it.Please feel free to comment all my photos ,because I'm still a beginner, and I need your advice.Thank you very much!


Exposure Time : 1/640 sec
F Number : 8.0
Exposure Program : Aperature Priority
ISO Speed : 400
Exposure Bias Value : 0.0
Max Aperture Value : 5.3
Metering Mode : Multi Segment
Light Source : Auto
Flash : Flash was not fired
Focal Length : 500.0 mm
Sensing Method : One-chip color area sensor
Lens SIGMA 150-500 mm F5.6-6.3 APO DG OS HSM

[John Chardine]

I like the idea of the green and yellow colours with the Magpie more or less just in the right place (i.e., I like the composition). Nice first post! You picked a challenging subject- essentially a black and white bird against a white background.

On my monitor, the bird is too dark and does not show enough detail to be the centre of attention so I did a quick edit to show what can be done. Photoshop to the rescue! I used the Shadows and Highlights command on the image (actually used the default values which rarely work) and it brightened up the bird nicely I think. The trick is not to overdo it or you will get lots of noise showing up in the dark feathers. You could do it selectively on the bird (like "Dodging" in the darkroom) if you like. Anyway here it is. Big welcome to BPN!

[Adrian David]

Thank you very much!It looks much better, brightened a little...It was not the ideal light there, and not the best background, but it was the pose who "captured" me...Today, I have learned something! Thank you again!!!

[Lana Hays]

Welcome to BPN. John did a nice job with this one. I agree....the pose was nice. There are many things to work on when you photograph. In time they all come together. This is a nice lesson to start with.

[John Chardine]

Thank you very much!It looks much better, brightened a little...It was not the ideal light there, and not the best background, but it was the pose who "captured" me...Today, I have learned something! Thank you again!!!

I should have mentioned that it's better to expose properly in the camera rather than have to resort to image processing. You will get much less noise doing it this way. In this case your light reading was heavily influenced by the sky and so maybe +1 to 2 stops exposure compensation would have brought out detail in the bird- not too much compensation though because then you could blow the whites in the bird. Manual exposure settings where you set up the camera for the surrounding lighting conditions works well too. Then it wouldn't matter if there were sky or trees or dark rock behind the bird. Shooting RAW gives you much more flexibility in difficult lighting conditions such as this.

[Maxis Gamez]

John's repost works very well bringing the details nicely.

[Adrian David]

I have tried a different processing of the image. I hope it works better...