Hi to everyone. During the past months I have been really busy at the office and my scarce free time has been devoted to several photographic projects but now it seems that life is returning to normality and I am back. I missed you, guys and gals, a lot ;)
This image is from the past february and it was made in one of the hot spots for birding in Spain, Monfragüe National Park. It is a griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus) soaring in the early light of a cloudy morning. The bird was flying at eye level (I was shooting from the top of a hill, Monfragüe´s Castle, see this image at the Friends and Family Forum http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8). The BG is not the sky but a very far “dehesa” plain covered with some mist. I like this image a lot instead of the fact that it has nothing special, even it is not the sharpest image I have done because of the high ISO800 (you know that high ISO is not the best friend of sharpness).
One of the things that I have learned after a long time processing files in the computer (time invested in the computer can help us to improve our photography) is that an overexposed file produces even a better result during the edition in Photoshop than a file with a nailed exposure and, of course, a much better result than an underexposed file. I am sure that this is nothing new for many of you guys. This is especially clear in the case of high contrast images because you can have a lot of control during the RAW conversion in the middle and dark zones of the histogram without experiencing noise issues (whites are really easy to recover during RAW conversion without noise issues but blacks are difficult to fix). I tend to overexpose most of my images, even low contrast ones like this vulture and. even if I can get a nailed exposure in the camera I try to made another frame overexposed because I know that I am going to produce a better result in the processing job. An overexposed image allow us much more control on the dynamic range and less issues with noise.
This image is overexposed, and fixed with curves during the RAW conversion. Needles to say that nailed images out of the camera requires less time investment in the computer but it took just a few additional seconds of work during RAW conversion to fix this file. Sharpness, saturation, selective noise reduction and selective sharpening in Photoshop are part of my workflow for all my images.
Overexposing images has the risk of blowing out whites, that it is right but, it is amazing how much overexposure in a RAW can be fixed and even a very overexposed file can produce amazing results…. (more on my next post).
I am here to learn and, as always, your comments, suggestions and critics are very welcomed :)
Juan it is so great to see you bak and I appreciate all your comments. This is a magnificent species and I always love seeing the topside. Excellent detail too. On my monitor the head looks a tad soft. The lighting and blue grey sky is beautiful and my only wish would be for a tad more room on top. Many thanks for sharing and look forward to your future posts.
Judy, I am happy to be back too :)
You are right, I think that the high ISO and the low shutter speed afected a bit to the sharpness. I totally agree with you about the need for more room at the top but I have no more room (of course, it is possible to add some additional room in PS) ;)
very nice Juan,on my screen their is plenty of detail,the head is tack sharp,like the wing position,and agree with others,a bit more room at the top would be nice,but a great picture.thanks.
Christopher the image looks sharp at this web size but is not as sharp as I would like at full size, you know what I mean (in my blog there is an entry with crops at full size of this image and some captures of the processing job), of course I am very happy with this vulture image ;)
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