On my recent trip to Florida I shot a number of pictures of egrets and other white birds. I kept underexposing each picture more and more, but this is the closest I could get to not burning out the whites. Yet I think there is still some over exposed white. How do you shoot these amazing birds and still keep the background looking good? This was shot with my only lens, a 28 - 135mm and shot at the 135. ISO 400, exposure -.67, 1/125, F5.6.
Thank you for your help! (Alfred, look! I got the photo to attach by myself! lol)
Cheryl there is no secret to these birds just soft light Lookslike you had some there Whites looks good from my end With the sun shining at full strenght the tonal range of most scenes exceed the range the camera can capture Ii is genearaly six stops
Lots of good things with your image Found a good looiking bird, preening with head paralell to film plane, whites look good, managed the bg welll and all sharp Woluld suggest more room at the top The large bird feels just tight and if you really wan to tweak the image select the head and lithen some Particularly around the eye area !!!!!
Thanks, Alfred. When over exposing 6 stops, what does that do to the surrounding area?
I have a lot more room in the orig pic, around the bird. My lens doesn't get that close. lol. so I will recrop. I did some unsharp mask and contrast around the beak and face. what else would your tweak?
Cheryl the six stops refers to the darkest reading in the scene to the lightest If it falls within six stops you will be fine In bright sun conditions with some deep shade you will get eight to nine !!! So it will be over exposed by a couple on one end or under at the other What happens more often than not is that the exposure is made to compensate and you end up with both ends over/under
Thanks, Nona. I think luck had a good part to play in this shot. I was with some friends who were not photographers, and didn't understand why I would want to stay in one place to keep trying for that perfect shot. "You already have 15 shots of that bird, let's go." Photography certainly tries to teach one patience.
You could do with a spot reading from the camera but would be easier using your histogram If you have the right and left spilling up on the edge You know the range has been exceeded
Here is what I did Added canvas to the top an right Cropped some from the left and bottom to move the bird out of the center Lighten the head/neck of the bird by selecting the area Lighten the yellow around the eye and darken pupil Used smart sharpen Not much just little detail here and there
Alfred, I understand everything you wrote except "Used smart sharpen". Is that a separate program from PhotoShop? My other question is the darkness of the foliage. It is darker than it was when taking the picture and to me it seems too dark. It was dark coming out of the camera. Do you usually leave it dark?
H Cheryl The smart sharpen is included in PS3 Seems to be a little better than using USM but not a necessity There are lots of ways to sharpen and will be illustrating a few
The bg can be lighten some but be careful Remember that any time you make something lighter noise will be introduced Noise is more prominent (visible) in shadow areas Also when opening the shadows (making lighter) they tend to take a strange feel I call it turn into mush On you image they do not look bad at all The time I have a problem is when they go to total black
shooting white and Egrets
