White Ibis

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Shot last month at Wakodahatchee wetlands at 6 pm.
Nikon D3S, 300mm f/4 + 1.4TC (420mm), 1/800 f/8 ISO800, SB900 flash, HH

30% crop for composition, Viveza, Dfine NR, Sharpener Pro

Ricardo

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Ricardo,

Nice job with this flight capture! Details, color, and composition are excellent. Exposure is well controlled with the whites in check and some details in the blacks and you have a nice rendition of the evening light. Nice use of fill flash, perhaps a touch more light would help the upper wing. A tiny bit more of a head turn would have been nice, but I know this is difficult to get in flight shots. I might use a curves or levels adjustment to boost the mid-range tones.

Nicely done!!

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful flight shot. Exposure looks great to me; nice work with the flash. Like the comp and detail. Sky color seems a bit odd to me, but has a certain Florida look so maybe it's natural.

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Here's the image with more light on the upper wing. Thanks, Kerry.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Ricardo,

Greetings. Nice wing detail & color, wish for a bit more detail in the body (maybe lost to the low jpeg quality... posting up to the 200K limit would be good). Bringing up the midtones as Kerry suggests would be good.

I haven't used flash but isn't this a little far for effect & you only get one shot? Just curious... I'm partial to a bit higher shutter speed and continuous shooting for bif.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Dave Mills]

Hi Ricardo, I feel your repost is an improvement. I like the detail in the blacks and whites along with the birds position in the frame. Kerry had some good suggestions...

[Lance Peters]

Ricardo,

Greetings. Nice wing detail & color, wish for a bit more detail in the body (maybe lost to the low jpeg quality... posting up to the 200K limit would be good). Bringing up the midtones as Kerry suggests would be good.

I haven't used flash but isn't this a little far for effect & you only get one shot? Just curious... I'm partial to a bit higher shutter speed and continuous shooting for bif.

Cheers,

-Michael-

Flash must be set to High speed sync mode and for every stop you go above the sync speed - you will loose a stop of flash power - the use of a better beamer will help as it extends flash power (3 stops), so depends on distance to subject as to whether it has any effect.

Image does look quite nice - agree with the comments above re lack of detail in the body area?? Looks a little smooth and detail less - could just be the Jpg though.
Like the outstretched wings and eye contact.
Keep em coming :)

[Oscar Zangroniz]

A great improvement on the re post. Like the wing position and the soft light you were able to capture due to the time of day.
congrats

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Flash must be set to High speed sync mode and for every stop you go above the sync speed - you will loose a stop of flash power - the use of a better beamer will help as it extends flash power (3 stops), so depends on distance to subject as to whether it has any effect.

Lance, Thanks for the explanation... I just discovered the metadata reports "return light detected" under flash, so apparently it did have effect. I had no idea flash could be used this way... cool.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Hi y'all, thanks for the interesting discussion generated by my White Ibis image. The EXIF data says the bird was 20 mts (65 ft) away, which I believe is well within the range of the SB900 flash. Thank you, Lance, for explaining the stops lost beyond the sync speed. BTW, when I shoot BIF with flash, I always have the Better Beamer on.

Before posting the Ibis image, I was aware and concerned that the JPEG file was way too small (80 KB) and that detail might be lost, but I assumed (wishful thinking?) that the unusually small size was due to the uniformity of the sky and bird, which may have allowed the JPEG algorithm to do a greater-than-normal compression without undue loss (I may be way off on this conjecture, and would appreciate technical help on how JPEG compression actually works). Indeed, while the Ibis image file size coming out of Aperture is only 80 KB when constrained to no more than 1024x1024 pixels, the very same procedure with the previous post (Shy Stork, 4/16) yielded a file that exceeded BPN's 200 KB limit (but let's not tell anybody!).

I regret the loss of IQ in the posted image, but the next best JPEG option in Aperture produced a file of more than 1 MB and, so, decided not to use it. Maybe I should use another method to convert the file from RAW (or PSD) to JPEG so that it comes out consistently close to the 200 KB limit while meeting BPN's 1024x800 constraint, so I'd appreciate your guidance on this issue.

Trying hard to climb up the learning curve!

Ricardo