Trying to keep up with all there is to see and capture here this week! The Internet connection here in West Yellowstone is of the "oatmeal box with string" variety (couldn't connect at all last night) and I am working on a tired old laptop - but want to share what I can anyway.
Found this vagrant along the Madison River east of the western park entrance. I have not seen a GBH with this pale plumage before. Is this common?
Converted with ACR and then to CS4 for sharpening and the usual image tweaks. Cropped a bit but not much. Had to use the noise reduction in CS4 as I don't have any of my good plugins on this laptop.
50D, 400mm f/5.6
Aperture priority f/5.6@1/500 ISO 400 EC +2/3
AI Servo AF, HH no flash
Thanks for your comments!
Last edited by Kerry Perkins; 06-05-2009 at 09:38 AM.
Reason: typo...
kerry, i like the pose and the environment. your bird shows some noise. big crop or underexpose? at +0.7 i think you were a little under. needed to be +1.3ish. might sharpen the eye just a little more too.
looks like you are having fun at yellowstone. cant wait to see what else you get!! be safe!!!
Hi Kerry - doesn't look too far under to me - in that if you went much higher with the + compensation you would have blown the whites - just try setting a black and white point in P.S. not much movement as far as the whites are concerned.
Looks a little soft on my screen - maybe from the NR - seeing you dont have your regular tools.
Hi Kerry! Here is my take, for what its worth. As far as exposure goes, it isn't a question of how it looks now, but the original RAW image. I would surmise the image was underexposed, or at least a large part of the bird, or why would noise reduction software be necessary at ISO 400? (I'm not sure about the crop, but I'm assuming it wasn't great) I'm not sure about the lighting, but very likely the biggest source of problems (like that is unusual!).It appears that although the light was somewhat diffuse, which is a good thing, there is a strong side lit component. This increasing brightness of the right side of the bird, which is also where the lightest plumage is, is the root of the problem IMO. Increasing exposure compensation under those conditions may very well create proper exposure for most of the bird, yet blow out the light areas.
Solution; without use of a fill flash, there is a strong need that the light evenly illuminate the subject facing the camera. Of course this is generally done by having the sun a the photographers back, but even on bright overcast days, the sun's direction can have an effect, though positioning isn't as critical and you don't have to be as precise. Obviously this means being able to move to a better position to take the image, which sometimes isn't physically possible. However a good knee high set of wading boots can be invaluable, at least it is for me.
I would have gone for a vertical orientation while taking the picture, and it seems best for most egrets and herons standing errect, although horizontal at other positions.regards~Bill
Hi Kerry, sure wish I was there. I haven't been doing much still re-couping from major surgery two weeks ago. I like the pic. looks like the day was an overcast day and I think you did great. Maybe a tad bottom crop would help but not much. See you at Satwiwa again someday.
Yellowstone - day 2
