Advice for exposure on Wood Ducks?

[Julian Mole]

Hi,

Inspired by Doug Brown's photos of Wood Ducks I thought I would have a go at taking some of a local male Woody, an escapee, as they aren't indiginous to the UK (it's ringed and I think pinioned).

Anyway I took some shots in very weak sunshine and thought I had done reasonably well as the camera showed no flashing highlights and the RGB histograms didn't indicate a clipped red channel. However on opening the best shots in ACR I found I'd still managed to oversaturate the orange at the top of the bill in several (as Arthur Morris was warning about just the other day) and this was really difficult to undo without messing up the whole image.

So does anyone have any advice. Is this a situation where I really should be activating the Highlight Tone Priority feature on my 40D? Should I also adjust the contrast setting for my in camera jpg Picture Style, currently set at -2, would that help with the highlight alert? Or is the yellowy/orange light of the setting sun a bad choice for lighting this species?

I would really appreciate some help as I will be going back tomorrow to try for some better shots, with a completely sunny day forecast. (A rarity in the UK!)

Thanks,

Julian.

PS. Here is a crop of one of my better shots.
40D, 400mm 5.6 @ 5.6, 1/640 sec, ISO 1600
Manual Mode
Flash with better beamer @ -3 FEC

[Dan Brown]

I'd recommend getting there really early before the light gets harsh. My best results with Woody's has been in low contrast situations, even in overcast.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Julian Agree with Dan, the best solution is having good sort light. Btw for lots of these you need to sacrifice a bit of whites for shadow detail !!

Would increase contrast in your image since it looks sort of flat. Flash wise I don't think you got any flash on the bird at -3 and the selected shutter speed. One good way to know is making three images in quick succession, the first will be selected power, second somewhat less since capacitor is not fully charged and the last no flash at all. Good luck on your outing !!!

[Doug Brown]

Hi Julian! Wood Ducks make for beautiful subjects; unfortunately they can also be exposure nightmares! A quick question; do you shoot RAW or JPEG? I ask because you talk about using ACR but you also mention camera settings that apply to JPEGs only.

In terms of camera exposure, I normally get good results in the neutral to -1/3 EC range. But good for me is along the lines of what Al suggested. I'll push the whites into overexposure so that I'm able to get some detail in the blacks. I don't typically use a histogram in the field. I prefer to use flashing highlights. I like to see a few blinkies when I review an image. It's pretty easy to pull back 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop of overexposed whites in ACR or Lightroom. I find the blacks the most challenging part of Wood Duck exposure.

Here's an example of a Wood Duck; 1D Mark IV, 400mm, f/7.1, 1/1250, ISO 400, -1/3 EC. This image has been processed in Lightroom only with default sharpening and no NR. The whites are well preserved, but the blacks are still pretty black.

Next I'll post a 100% crop of this image. After that I'll post a screenshot of the unprocessed RAW file so you can see where the image was overexposed.

[Doug Brown]

Here's a 100% crop of the above image.

[Doug Brown]

Here's a screenshot from Lightroom of the unprocessed RAW file with overexposed areas colored red and underexposed areas colored blue.

To correct the exposure, I did the following;
1. Reduced my exposure by 0.08
2. Moved my black clipping slider from 5 to 2
3. Moved my highlight recovery slider from 0 to 6

The blacks still need a little work, but the other colors look fine IMO. Good luck!

[Julian Mole]

Hi Dan, Alfred and Doug,

Thank you all for your help and good advice.

Alfred: you were very right about the attached image I did it late last night and didn't realise at the time it was in need of a good contrast boost. I have altered the curves and attahced the revised photo. However shall try to get much better ones today/ this week, will also try adjusting the FEC as recommended.

Doug: Lovely photo. In answer to your question I use RAW+Small jpg, the reason I mentioned about the Jpg Picture Style and it's constrast setting is that I understand this influences the flashing highlights and Histograms you see on the camera.
I had read that a contrast setting of -2 lets you get better detail in whites when you convert your RAW file, but I didn't know if changing that setting would save me oversaturating the orange on the bill of the Wood Duck?
However the suggestion of using softer light is probably the key.
I'll also try pushing the whites a bit more as I did try to keep them from giving flashing highlights.

Thanks guys, I'll let you know how I get on this afternoon - unfortunately the 'completely sunny day' didn't materialise, but a bit of cloud might help in this instance!

[Ray Rozema]

Thanks for the discussion and suggestions

Ray

[Julian Mole]

Hi Ray,

I'm sure you'll probably get plenty more chances to use the advice than I will, as we only have the one Wood Duck locally. However I'm sure I can put the basic principles to good use with other high contrast birds such as Magpies.

Sadly, although I went back yesterday to the get some more photos, it didn't work out.
It was just one of those days when I feel like I must be wearing "bird repellent"!! As I couldn't get the Woody to come closer and then stay there so could take photos, and then the pair of Goosander that were my Plan B decided to fly off the minute I took my lens off the tripod and made one step towards them! :-(

[Julian Mole]

Hi,

I went back yesterday afternoon for another go and, thankfully, I managed to get some decent photos of this little chap.

Here is one of my best shots. I might have had more but for a plethora of Swans and Geese which got in the way quite a lot!
That and technical errors on my part (I didn't keep an eye on the shutter speed when the sun went in, so lost some potentially good images to blurring, and the later shots show signs of 'overflashing' as flash was doing more than providing fill flash. Not sure why, probably the slower shutter speeds?)

I also still have problems with the top of the bill being over saturated, I had to selectively de-saturate it in Photoshop.

40D, 400mm 5.6
Av mode
1/320 sec, 5.6, ISO 800, EC +1/3
Flash+Better Beamer FEC@ -2
Hand Held, Lying on ground

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks, Julian.

PS. Do you think he needs some rotation? Perhaps some a tad more contrast as well?

[Doug Brown]

Hi Julian. You're definitely getting better! Most of what I see can be fixed in PP. The bird is lacking in contrast as presented, and the blacks could stand to be blacker. Here's a repost with an adjusted black point, a contrast boost, and a slight saturation increase. I also darkened the pupil a bit. What do you think?

[Julian Mole]

Hey Doug,

Thank you for the reply, and thanks also for posting a corrected image. :-)

I just need to check you are viewing in a colour managed web browser? As I noticed yesterday, after I had internet browser problems, that my Wood Duck photo looks different in Internet Explorer to how it is in my colour managed Mozilla Firefox, and after checking your image in both they look slightly different also.

So I wanted to know which 'one' I should be commenting on!

[Doug Brown]

Firefox is color managed, and that's the browser I'm using. On my monitor the images you've posted look a little flat (blacks aren't black enough and the colors are subdued). Is your monitor calibrated?

[William Malacarne]

Firefox is color managed, and that's the browser I'm using. On my monitor the images you've posted look a little flat (blacks aren't black enough and the colors are subdued). Is your monitor calibrated?

Doug

Firefox, latest version, is not fully managed at this time.....it does not cover ICC 4. I don't know how many of these type photos are on the web. I can't find anything on Mozilla that says anything about this though.

http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter

Bill

[Julian Mole]

Hi Doug,

Yes, I recently calibrated my laptop monitor (although the monitor quality isn't the best) and instructed Mozilla to use the monitor profile.

So that's good, I now know which version of the image I should be commenting on! :-)

Yes, i like it. I agree the contrast definitely needed boosting, however I was slightly surprised that you increased the saturation because some areas were already on the edge (of becoming oversaturated). Is this because you think it presents a more realistic representation of the duck?

Anyway thank you for taking the time to help me, I appreciate it.

Julian.