Had a chance to visit the Eagles again this weekend - still practicing proper exposure compensation. (I was averaging too much last time, not enough this time - third time's the charm though!)
This guy turned right at me with wings spread and I clipped both his wings. How do you salvage this image from a composition stand point - or is it a "hit the delete button" and go?
Since this is a straight raw conversion (no output adjustments yet) I might as well take advantage of some of the expertise here - what would you do and in what order?
Heavy overcast day
700mm
f / 5.6
1/2000th
ISO 1000
+0.7ev (too low for this shot)
Man, your heart must have been in the throat when this guy turned your way. I will let's the pros & others give the comp advise, but your exposure settings have improved over last time - congrads.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 01-16-2010 at 08:18 PM.
Hi Mark - general rule of thumb is - you want it to look cut - not clipped. So would adjust your crop to make it look like a deliberate compositional crop rather than looking like you clipped the wings.
Are you using your histogram on the camera?? You did not mention what exposure mode you were working in??
if the BG is going to change whilst you are shooting IE: flight shots - best to work in manual mode - set the exposure for the bird and then you can fire away not worrying about whats in the BG changing your exposure.
I would set a black and white point - selectively add a bit of punch to the yellows - crop - sharpen including sharpening the eyes a tad.
Love the direct stare.
Nice pose. Agree that I would crop since it is already clipped. Increase exposure, the whites are too grey. Increase saturation on the yellows. Add sharpening.
If this was on the Mississippi, are the eagle numbers down this year in your area?
Great fun. Wonderful potential here, and we can all feel your pain at the missing wingtips. I opened the image in ACR and did the all the usual edits including a crop that seemed to me to emphasize the head coming at you. Then I opened the image in PS and sharpened just the bird, and darkened just the water.
By the usual edits I mean starting with the first page, running down each item, then on to second page etc.
Thanks for posting this, it was a privilege to try some editing on such a wonderful original. I am interesting in seeing what others suggest.
My take, and what works for me, and I could be totally off base! I am in total agreement about the manual exposure, and I would use your histogram and expose to the far right. Overcast conditions, which are low contrast by definition in that there is no large difference between dark and light, have the advantage in that the camera sensor can capture both the brightest and darkest illuminations present, as opposed to high contrast light(bright sunshine), in which case it is often not possible. Recovery of camera histogram or image editor histogram indicated blown or "clipped" whites, by using the recovery or exposure sliders in ACR for example, is much more likely than you would expect, but only in low contrast conditions. There is obviously a limit, but blinkies and other warning indicators have headroom built in, depending on the camera or software, and they are not as reliable as in high contrat situations where the blinklies truely indicate that you are likely to not be able to recover clipped whites (it is possible, sometimes, but not to a great degree).
There is a big advantage in that overexposed images at high ISOs(or any ISO for that matter) contain much less noise than you would suppose. Digital noise is evident only in dark parts of an image, get rid of them by brightening those darks up by overexposure, and then "fixing" this later in post processing by reducing exposure(which never induces noise) is the way to go.
Therefore under these lighting conditions specifically, shoot manually, overexpose to the far right and don't be overly concerned with the blinkies. There is a very good chance that they can be recovered. Indeed, you don't want the entire screen going crazy with blinkies, and there is a limit.
This will seem terribly wrong when you get home and see that all your images are washed out. A little ACR work and you will not only notice much less noise that you would expect, but those whites that you would bet contain little or no digital information, actual contain quite a bit. regards~Bill
I cropped the image, set white/black points, selective brighten the eagle, run small NR then selective sharpen parts of the bird (I left out the dark area to avoid noise, I should left out the background too but didn't). Like the incoming pose and the intense stare, nicely focus on the face too.
Last edited by Thanaboon Jearkjirm; 01-17-2010 at 07:12 AM.
Thanks everyone - this was fun! Some good input and a few really nice reposts. Here's my post-processed version - continued ideas and input welcome!!
----------------------------------------------------------
Aperture and Nik Software are my processing tools.
-Cropped
-White Balance
-Exposure (+1)
-Black Point
-Noise Reduction with Nik Define
-Definition Slider to .4
-Added Vibrancy
-Levels Adjustment
-Some Shadow Recovery
-Selective Color Boost (Yellowish/Orange)
-Sharpened with Nik Sharpener Pro (50%) on head, neck, tail and feet
What Would You Do?
