Ring-billed Gull tossing fish
I took this image today at Forsythe NWR, Oceanville, NJ with my Canon 1D Mk lll, Canon 400/2.8 lens, tripod mounted with Wimberley type 2 head, ISO 320, 1/1250, f5.6. This is my second avian post. Thanks to the comment on my first image posted here, I found and applied the grid (in thirds) over the image and hope it helped with the cropping. :)
Hi Susan - love the action - you have a good HA and eye contact, good clear sharp eye as well - like the open beak and the fish suspended mid air.
Some of the whites look a little bright - probably not technically over - for posting on the web anything over 240 tends to look this way - IMHO.
Composition looks good to me :)
Keep em coming.
Hi Susan,
I like the action captured here, and the direct eye contact...the open bill and the catch in mid air is a plus. The whites are a little warm, but within range...good show...:cool:
Hi Susan, I agree with previous posters' comments. Good capture of the moment. But I find the left side of the gull's neck and head to be blown out. I was unable to adjust it in CS4, finding no detail in the hot area. My monitor has been calibrated. I'm curious as to why I'm seeing this image somewhat different than others.
Joe
Thanks for the comments! I'm glad I was able to do a better crop, and was thrilled to capture this moment.
I would prefer more detail in the whites also. Joe, my monitor shows the same as yours; toasted whites on the left.
My first post to ETL was of a Ruddy Duck diving. Lance suggested I turn on the highlight alert on my camera, which I did. Yesterday, one of my goals was to pay close attention to the "blinkies" to try to minimize loss of detail in the whites. On a bright, sunny day, using seagulls, it was a challenge! I played with the exposures quite a bit. :) Now, if I could just arrange a bright, overcast day.....:D
And another thank you to Lance for his suggestion on sharpening.
Hi Joe - there is a difference between blown out and no detail - whites that are blown out will have a value of 255,255,255 - totally white, no detail.Originally Posted by Joe Brown
So whilst the neck does appear to have no detail - the values are not 255,255,255 they are close but not over.
As I mentioned once you post to the web anything over 240 is going to look as if it is over.
You are correct that there does appear to be little detail on the side of the neck - even the use of the over exposure blinkies would not have helped here -as its technically not over.
Susan - you could go back to the raw an see what you can recover from it - You might need to make two images, one for the whites and one for the rest and then combine them in photoshop - bit like a HDR image if you like.
Worth a shot.
Hi Susan. I like this shot a lot. I agree that the whites look a little hot, and the technical advice given here will help us all. I would also like to say that I also shoot at Forsythe. I am the secretary of the photo club there and would like to invite you to join us on the second Saturday of each month. We'd love to have you. The club website is www.stayfocusedphotoclub.com
Thanks Lance for the suggestion to make two images. I hadn't thought of that. :)
Dave, if I 'm down on one of those Saturdays I'll stop in. Thanks for the invite. I had heard of the club before, but tend to want to be outside when I'm there..... :D
Susan, You need to let us know how you compensated to wind up with EXP that you used. The #s alone tell no story.
Lance, Though the whites on the side of the neck show as 240 and do not show up as blown when I hold down the Alt Key and the Highlight slider I do recognize detail-less whites when I see them so something fishy is going on. And I tried to do a Linear Burn and would up with grey mush....
And there were lots of pixels that showed as over.
I find that when I start with a good EXP, recover the details either in ACR or in DPP (just moving the white point) on the RAW curve, and produce an optimized TIFF with nothing over-exposed that my JPEGs look great with clean detailed whites even though they are prepared using an action....
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There was no exposure compensation, if I understand your question. I did some photoshopping, shadow/highlights, slight burning over the brightest area on the gull's side. A little sharpening.
Not sure what you mean by fishy. I now recognize there is a huge learning curve ahead of me WRT post processing. Does my EXIF data show? If not it would be on my flickr site.
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