Only day of sun last week at Estero. I've always loved the way BIF look when they are backlit and the wings look almost transparent so I thought I'd try my hand at it. White birds are always tough to expose for , and backlit is no exception. Interested in all critique and thoughts.
800 ISO f5.6 at 1/2500th
AP at minus 1
Cropped for comp.
Hi Joe - This is a unique and interesting shot. I like the feet positioning of the bird and the backlighting looks great to me. I'm especially interested in the background, which looks totally different than what I'm used to as if it were pan blurred bit, I suppose. The horizontal streaks in the foreground water are pretty cool, I think. I'm wondering how this shot might have looked at ISO 400 but I like what you have done.
Backlit plumage shows feather detail nicely and really makes the bird glow. Exposure can be a challenge in this situation. There are some very hot whites in the tail and I would try reprocessing with a bit more recovery and maybe a bit more fill light. I would try blurring out the BG a bit to reduce the structure of the dark and light areas.
I have tried a similar thing on this bird. Had a very dark background (solid color) and a bit softer light, which helped, except that the black wing tips disappeared against the background.
Good advice from Tony.
You normally wouldn't think about fill flash here, but if you were trying to work this exact situation, it might help tame the dynamic range challenge a bit, and give more even illumination on the front.
White Ibis Backlit
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