Snowy Egret - eye to eye

[Bill Dix]

D90; 80-400 @ 145m; ISO 800, f/6.3 @ 1/1250s. Matrix metering @ -0.1 EV. HH.

Blind Pass just after sunrise with the sun still behind a cloud bank. Lower angle might have helped the bird but would have lost the fisheye. C&C appreciated.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill

Might go back and take a peak at the histogram, should be underexposed? I know the Nikon meters give a little different readings but seems off.

I like the pose and clearly visible fish, bg water looks odd with the darker areas. Catching the bird without overlapping legs would have been better, good to keep working the bird.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks Alfred. The original histogram was pretty much centered, with some room to the right. I brightened it up a tad in PP, but I've clipped the whites in some recent posts, so I've been cautious not to overdo it. As posted there are some pixels up around 250. I don't know if some S/H work might help. I can't explain the dark areas just above the bird but they are there in the original RAW file. I have a version with the legs apart in a walking pose but there is a distracting wavelet going right behind the head. I guess you're right -- the lesson is to keep working the bird until it all falls into place. Thanks for the comments. (PS. I also just brightened my monitor a bit so that I can just barely see some separation between the two left-hand blacks on the monitor calibration strip. I still see more distinction between the two RH squares on the strip than I do the two LH ones, so I don't think it's too bright, but maybe I need to do a more sophisticated calibration.)

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill

In the original capture do try to have data in the last box to the right, any time you underexpose the noise comes right up and dark areas look muddy. I hardly use shadow/highlight and used to be a heavy user !!!

Monitor wise its always a good idea to calibrate, the hardware has gotten reasonable, I use the X-Rite and the Spyder is also available. There are some threads about in Digital topics !!!

[Bill Dix]

Thank you. That's very helpful. I'll check out the Digital Topics threads.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

I somehow like the dark OOF area behind the bird. It looks like the bird has a dark malice aura growing from it, which fits the picture well since the bird is about to make a meal out of little fish.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Bill,
I like the capture with the fresh catch of the day...:) The image is a tad under exposed, good advise given by Mr. Forns reference the histogram...keep them coming...:cool:

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great low angle capture and composition Bill. Fish in mouth makes it for me.
Congrats

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Nice composition and pose. If indeed the sun was behind a cloud bank, which I might add is a big advantage in shooting white birds, there would have been quite a bit more leeway for overexposure than in full sun, and in such situations I'd go at least stop over. I personally want to get exposure correct for most of the subject (which means overexposed to me), and deal with a few "blown whites" later in PS. Sounds radical, but if you are using ACR the recovery slider should deal with the blown whites in low contrast situations quite well and noise would have been kept in check.
I read you had the dark head/back area in the RAW image. I don't doubt you, but this is usually a sign that shadow/highlight tool was used in Photoshop. Much better to do these adjustments in ACR on the RAW image, using curves. This reduce halos considerably. regards~Bill

[Bill Dix]

Nice composition and pose. If indeed the sun was behind a cloud bank, which I might add is a big advantage in shooting white birds, there would have been quite a bit more leeway for overexposure than in full sun, and in such situations I'd go at least stop over. I personally want to get exposure correct for most of the subject (which means overexposed to me), and deal with a few "blown whites" later in PS. Sounds radical, but if you are using ACR the recovery slider should deal with the blown whites in low contrast situations quite well and noise would have been kept in check.
I read you had the dark head/back area in the RAW image. I don't doubt you, but this is usually a sign that shadow/highlight tool was used in Photoshop. Much better to do these adjustments in ACR on the RAW image, using curves. This reduce halos considerably. regards~Bill

Bill, thanks for the helpful comments. I went back and checked the RAW file, and the shadow over the bird is coming from the reflection of the black legs and shaded underbelly of another egret just above this one, that I cropped out of the final image. But I may have increased the effect with some S/H in processing. I appreciate the information. There was a typo in my EXIF -- I shot it at -0.7 EV which probably wasn't necessary given the low light condition.