As a new BPN member, and armed with new camera and lens, I thought I'd try a first post on your fantastic site. On the first day out with the new equipment I caught this Red-winged Blackbird in display mode. Loved his attitude. Nikon D90 with 80-400 mm VR lens, hand-held @400 mm; ISO 400; F 5.6, 1/1600 s. Matrix metering. Adjusted exp. +0.75 in RAW Transfer to get some detail in wings; desaturated the epaulets a bit; added contrast to the stalk; cropped (severely) and sharpened, with a bit extra at the eye. Might have done better if I hadn't left the tripod in the car. I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.
Hi Bill - a big warm welcome to BPN - I am sure you will love it here. Congrats on the new equipment - another Nikon User - Yay.
Like where you were heading with this one - and your PP is showing that you have some understanding as to what you need to be doing. Love his attitude as well :)
O.K... show as prestened your blacks are blocked(No Detail) only solution to this is at the time of shooting, trhough the use of fill flash (dont like it myself with black birds) or softer lighter. If you are using matrix metering with this scene the camera looks at the scene and goes WOW thats a very bright scene I need to tone it down a lot (after all this is all your camera knows how to do - it trys to make everything a middle tone) which results in blacks with no detail - so you would need to ADD light through your exposure compensation so that you had details in your blacks - would probably result in your BG getting blown out but we are worried about the bird - this is called a high key effect and can be very nice.
Oto the noise and lack of detail - a result of the severe crop no doubt- with some stealth you will be amazed at how close you can get to a wild bird.
Hi Bill,
A big warm welcome to the BPN family. I like your capture and composition...I fully agree with Mr. Peters on his assessment of your image...looking forward to your next one...by the way, congratulations on your new Nikon equipment, welcome to the Dark Side...:):cool:
Hi Bill, agree with all of Lance's advice. From comments I have heard here they have said it is hard to photograph a black bird about an hour after sunrise in bright light. Light is too harsh. Really like the pose though. Hope you get some more chances.
Welcome! Nice first post. Composition and attitude are excellent on your image.
Severe crop is what we all struggle with:o, agree with Lance's excellent post...
Again, welcome...
Big Warm Welcome Bill !!! Congrats on your new equipment !!! Will do well with it !!
Great suggestions and fully agree !!! Impressed with all your good points right down to reducing the red channel !!! Detail is important !!!
I feel you made the best possible image from your position, only softer light would have helped !!! Fill flash with harsh light does help but do the math on coverage ... not much light output at that speed !!! .. so is back to softer light !!! I like it a lot !!!
Thanks Lance and the rest of you for your helpful comments. I've got a lot to learn: can't count on RAW processing to fix all my in-camera exposure mistakes; work on my stealth techniques, and buy hip boots since this guy was across the marsh; and install Ninja Noise. Thanks Jackie for the re-post which shows noticible improvement.
Bill
Thanks Lance and the rest of you for your helpful comments. I've got a lot to learn: can't count on RAW processing to fix all my in-camera exposure mistakes; work on my stealth techniques, and buy hip boots since this guy was across the marsh; and install Ninja Noise. Thanks Jackie for the re-post which shows noticible improvement.
Bill
As an alternative to the metering suggested by Lance, would spot-metering on the bird's breast work, with reducing the exposure in pp if necessary (i.e. the camera would then interpret the bird's breast as being middle gray)? I have posted a few images in which I have used spot-metering, and the experts here obviously disapprove! Would someone like to comment on spot-metering in this type of situation, as a learning point?
Got Attitude?
