Took this image early afternoon used spot metering trying not to blow out the whites also used Moose warming polarizer. How can you save white feather detail ih bright sunlight?
nikon2DX's 80-400mm vr lens at 310mm, iso 400 at 1/800 f5/6, spot metering, wb cloudy
hi Craig - white birds are tough in anything but soft light - what did you spot meter off?
Generally speaking you will be better off with Matrix metering and exposure compensation - with the exception of BIF against changing backgrounds - were its best to be in manual mode so that your exposure does not change as the BG does.
Whites dont look to bad - the blacks are a little blocked but thats to be expected in these circumstances cant have it both ways.
You have a good HA and eye contact - might crop some from the top to move the head up and out of the centre closer to a ROT.
Good show :)
Keep em coming.
Love the HA, the eye contact and the ripple in the water. There also a small circular ripple in from the body, did the bird drop something into the water?
In bright sunlight it is hard get good details out of black and white. But I think you didn't do too bad with this one, a few red channel blown on the body but most of the details are still there, if you still have RAW file you probably can even recover more white. Even though some black are block on the beak but there still part which you probably can bring out the details too. Light seem to be coming from the side too, which add more contrast in bright light condition.
Nice shot, if you used spot did you use any compensation? Like Lance said, what did you meter off? If you metered off the white bird, you would need to add light, how did original histogram look. Body shadows are a bit strong and the blk vs white trade is part of this beautiful picture - the whites must win.
Exposure techs looks good, you were catching some strong early-evening light sideways against swans body - you handled it well - but some type of compensation was needed or wait a while to shot. To the extent you have some blown highlights, maybe you did not meter off the brightest spot or you added too much light, what was the metering mode (e.g. AV, TV or manual). In terms of recovery, you will find good documentation in the "education forum" on recovering whites. For example, Linear Burn, Multiplier, Color Selection, S & H etc. On balance this is a real nice picture of a beautiful nature moment - well done.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 11-20-2009 at 10:28 AM.
Hi Craig I think you are going to get all confused using spot metering !!!!!!!!
In order to make it work you need to meter right on the white and the point might cover more ... then you have to get the right setting .. in this case the whites are not 100% whites. Just got to Matrix will be a lot easier for you.. here probably start at -2/3 and check histogram btw if you find an exposure you like, then can switch to manual and use as long as the bird is in the same light. In Av the exposure will change according to the bg !!!
Image wise try to get in sun angle, best to miss than shoot off angle and come up with shadows over the body. Would tighten crop !! Good pose and like the water a lot !!!
agree with using manual mode. once you get the exposure dialed in right, you will not have to worry about it unless the light changes. you will not have to worry about a changing bg changing the exposure.
this may be the first time i have seen someone use a filter in bird photography. anyone else out there do this? seems you would lose a lot of shutter speed with the polarizar.
Tundra Swan
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