D300 with 70-300f4.5-5.6 VR @300mm. Manual exposure mode, no flash; ISO 800 f6.3 1/640 sec. I believe I intended to shoot it at 1/500 but perhaps I touched the dial accidentally and so ended up with 1/640.
This is pretty much as shot except some cropping, added a touch of brightness to the background snow with curve, removed some debris on the snow, and sharpened mainly the eye.
Took it last Friday, when the road and weather condition was better.
Hi Desmond:
Beautiful Oregon Pale adult male subspecies which I have never seen before. I love everything about the complete photo. Something I would be proud to hang on my wall.
Colours look fab on the bird Desmond, and the snow looks great too. Like the stubble of grass to balance the composition. Would be curious to know how you metered too!
Al and Jackie, it actually was very simple: I metered off the snow and added two stops. The meter reading as is will put the snow in mid-gray, or Zone V under the Zone system. Opening up two more stops - in my manual exposure mode case it means I actually turned the dial and adjusted the shutter speed - put the snow to Zone VII, white with details. I shot in manual mode and so nothing that came in sight would affect the final exposure like it would if you use auto mode. It also helped that it was a cloudy day and so the dark hood of the junco and everything else were still within the dynamic range of the camera. No clipping on either end of the histogram (perhaps two stops were a touch too much).
I used this way to meter in all my snow scene shots so far (including the tree in the snow I posted previously).
Thank you and Merry Christmas !!
Last edited by Desmond Chan; 12-25-2008 at 01:52 PM.
Desmond - excellent exposure, nice position on the bird. And thanks for the run down on how you did this exposure. You certainly captured the richness of the bird's colors.
For me, I'd be tempted to crop a bit more, and slightly lighten the area directly around the eye a tad so the eye is more distinct.
Cheers
Gail
Male dark-eyed junco foraging in the snow
Originally Posted by Alfred Forns
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