Missed this shot. What would you have done?

[Colin Knight]

Here's the scenario:

-Harsh light and changing rapidly due to cloud movement
-Shooting with a 500mm from a kayak (so a high shutter speed is desired)
-Very dark background which is in the shade no matter what
-White Ibis
-You're 8 miles into a 16 mile kayak trip and it's your first white Ibis and you're going to take the shot!

How do you expose? Normally I handle this by using manual exposure, meter on the bird, then open up 2/3-1 stop as a starting point, then check the histogram. In this case, I saw some blinkies on the preview, raised my shutter speed, checked for blinkies...less blinkies this time....raised shutter speed....etc. What got me was the background which was seemingly getting darker than I wanted, so I raised the shutter a bit more and assumed I could recover the overexposed areas. I was wrong, and this is only a "keeper" because it's my first white Ibis.

In retrospect, I should have gone until there were no "blinkies" and the histogram wasn't showing over exposure. But this process of shooting/checking histogram/tweaking exposure is long and tedious compared to a quick bird. How would YOU nail the exposure within the first few shots with such a wide dynamic range and where the whites are so important?

Sorry, for some reason it won't let me post an 800px size. Will try to edit later.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I think you needed luck. I don't know how with so many variables you would have been able to nail this shot especially with light changing, in a kayak etc. Can you post any larger??? There is a thread on how to size at the top of the forum.

[Colin Knight]

Finally, it let me post a larger version:

[Tom Redd]

I think it is beautiful, I personally like a darker BG, but then I guess that is "salt to taste". I would say it is only too dark if you adjusted the exposure and the bird is now too dark and not as white as he should be??? Just my thoughts and I am a beginner so take it as such...

[Colin Knight]

I like darker backgrounds too, but this background is almost completely black in some places.

[Lance Peters]

SOFTER LIGHT.

Something else I have down at times and its dangerous - IMHO - is to over expose - YEP having blinkies on the whites and then recovering the whites in PP - Knowing how much you can push the whites over and still be able to recover is of course the real SECRET.

BG looks constant here and unless you were hoping he would take flight - I would have used AV and exposure compensation - ALL just practise really in AV mode - One shot to check the histogram which would be close and then a slight adjustment - IF the light and BG was constant.
If the light was not constant - I would be noticing the changes as I shoot and adjusting the exposure compensation accordingly. (Its just practice - If I am bored - I will often just shoot throwaway shots to practice)

Dont mind the dark BG - Good HA and clear sharp eye.
Dont think there was anything you could have done given the circumstances to improve.
Keep em coming :)

[Colin Knight]

Great stuff here, Lance!

SOFTER LIGHT.

Knowing how much you can push the whites over and still be able to recover is of course the real SECRET.

And I don't know that point yet! Something that hurts is the the blinkies are only displayed when the image is fully zoomed out. So if the bird is at a distance, it looks like a very small part of the bird is over exposed, when in fact it could be the entire back of the bird like the image I posted! I would like to be able to zoom in the preview and still see the blinkies or at least an RGB histogram.

BG looks constant here and unless you were hoping he would take flight - I would have used AV and exposure compensation - ALL just practise really in AV mode - One shot to check the histogram which would be close and then a slight adjustment - IF the light and BG was constant.
If the light was not constant - I would be noticing the changes as I shoot and adjusting the exposure compensation accordingly. (Its just practice - If I am bored - I will often just shoot throwaway shots to practice)

Great to know- I'm not the only one who relies on the histogram and tweaking to get it right. Good point at the end though, I need to practice more..

Dont mind the dark BG - Good HA and clear sharp eye.
Dont think there was anything you could have done given the circumstances to improve.
Keep em coming :)

Thanks a bunch for chiming in!

[Mark Young]

It's a very nice image. I really like the pose and eye contact of the bird in this image with the bird standing on the branch.
The BG is just a touch too green for my tastes. I'ld maybe tone that down a little in PP, and just a couple more passes of sharpening/USM as well.

SOFTER LIGHT.

Something else I have down at times and its dangerous - IMHO - is to over expose - YEP having blinkies on the whites and then recovering the whites in PP - Knowing how much you can push the whites over and still be able to recover is of course the real SECRET.

Lance I know what you've said here is subjective, but do you reccomend this option for a mostly white bird or one what only shows a small amount of white. Because I've exposed to the right and overexposed the white parts of the birds (ie: Magpie) to get more detail in the blacks, which I've then tried to recover in PSE, but I've never done this to a Red-necked Stint where it is mostly whitish (in non-breeding plumage)

[Michael Hogan]

I agree with Lance and I do the same - photograph mainly in AV mode and use Exposure compensation. Having read AM books (The Art of Bird Photography I & II) and looking at your image I would say you got it spot on subtracting 2/3 from the exposure. It would be nice to see the histogram from Photoshop to see if you have much pegged against the left. I doubt it as there is not much black in the image.

BTW I love the image, great pose, HA, BG. Wish it was one of mine.

TFS

Michael

[Colin Knight]

Thanks all very much for your comments!

[Desmond Chan]

Normally I handle this by using manual exposure

Good choice ;)

meter on the bird, then open up 2/3-1 stop as a starting point,...

I assume you spot-metered on the white feathers of the bird only? I would have opened up 2 stops (to get zone VII which is very safe for white area). So not sure how you'd get the blinkies. You sure you metered area covered nothing but the white area of the bird?

[Colin Knight]

Desmond, your thread got me thinking and now I need to test a theory I have- the 7D metering is extremely accurate. It's a new metering system, and I think one of the first Canon metering systems to use color information. Basically, it's "smarter" than what I'm used to with the other EOS models. The method I used, and what you discussed above, may work very well for my 50D, but it could be that the 7D is more accurate, and opening up resulted in an overexposed image which the camera had originally metered correctly.

[Desmond Chan]

Desmond, your thread got me thinking and now I need to test a theory I have- the 7D metering is extremely accurate. It's a new metering system, and I think one of the first Canon metering systems to use color information. Basically, it's "smarter" than what I'm used to with the other EOS models. The method I used, and what you discussed above, may work very well for my 50D, but it could be that the 7D is more accurate, and opening up resulted in an overexposed image which the camera had originally metered correctly.

I doubt it but I could be wrong since I do not have a 7D or a Canon for that matter. Exposure meters, old and new, renders any scene to 18% grey (an average if you want to). Even if I assume that what you said about 7D or any Canon camera to be true, and if you did meter the white feathers only, then what you said should not matter because the object that you were metering had no other colors but white and grey. The method I described work every time regardless of the camera. In fact, I'd say it works since day one when exposure meter first came out :) If the details in the whites are what you want to preserve and is the most important thing in the photos, and you do not have time to fiddle around, then meter the white area and open up 2 stops. Or try 2 1/2 or even 3 (giving you a zone VIII) and recover the details in Raw in case you need some details in darker areas. You should not have any blinkies showing up at all because what you get all fall under 255 in RGB values. Do some experiments and see for yourself.

By the way, you said your camera's exposure meter is extremely accurate. Have you tested it? If so, how did you test it? Have you tested it with a mid-grey card?

[David Thomasson]

I like darker backgrounds too, but this background is almost completely black in some places.

That's cool. It won't hurt to make it totally black in some places. Main thing is to recover any clipped highlights on the subject,
and open the shadow details. Then play around with luminance variations in the background. In this case I used a reflected gradient
running from top right to bottom left, letting the other two corners fade into black. I think it's a fine shot, Colin!

[Colin Knight]

Desmond, I haven't tested it "scientifically", just in comparison to my other EOS cameras. It's excellent with high DR scenes, especially with conserving highlights. (Not seen in this shot since I was in manual.) The 7D has excellent metering, no doubt about it.

I don't know what the incorporation of color data into metering actually means for the 7D though. But if it makes it any more accurate at all, then maybe it's closer to the actual scene the middle grey. So opening up the same amount would result in over exposure.

I can read through the technical stuff all day about the new metering.....but I would rather think of a way to test this and I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Desmond Chan]

I don't know what the incorporation of color data into metering actually means for the 7D though. But if it makes it any more accurate at all, then maybe it's closer to the actual scene the middle grey. So opening up the same amount would result in over exposure.

No matter how you get there, all exposure meters give you one f-stop and one-shutter speed for a specific ISO to shoot with. Given one particular scene, all accurate exposure meters will give you the same set of settings regardless of it's from a 7D or 40D, it does not matter if it's from evaluative, matrix, or center-weighted average. When you shoot, you can only use one set of settings to make the exposure.

I can read through the technical stuff all day about the new metering.....but I would rather think of a way to test this and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Simple, in your case just shoot a white object and bracket. But that very well could only show how the exposure meter of YOUR 7D behaves; other people's may vary and that's not unusual. One way to test exposure meter is to shoot a photo of a mid-grey card. If the exposure meter is accurate, you shoot a photo of the grey card, you look at the histogram, and you should see a spike right in the middle of the histogram. Incidentally, the reading you get should be the same as one from an incident light meter. And incident light meter does not take into consideration of what is being shot. Something to think about: why would 7D exposure meter needs to gather data from here and there all over the scene to give you the same reading that an incident meter can? :)

[Colin Knight]

No matter how you get there, all exposure meters give you one f-stop and one-shutter speed for a specific ISO to shoot with. Given one particular scene, all accurate exposure meters will give you the same set of settings regardless of it's from a 7D or 40D, it does not matter if it's from evaluative, matrix, or center-weighted average. When you shoot, you can only use one set of settings to make the exposure.

So what would be the point of engineering new metering systems? If they all work the same from day one, and they all give you the exact same settings, then it's pointless. Is there no one metering system that's more accurate than another? I know there is, from what I've seen between my 7D and 40D/50D.

[Desmond Chan]

So what would be the point of engineering new metering systems?

To find a better way to get to the same result.

If they all work the same from day one, and they all give you the exact same settings, then it's pointless.

Why pointless? Do you think meter A should tell you to shoot at f5.6 1/125s ISO 400 but meter B should say f11 1/250 ISO 400 for the same scene that you are shooting? You really think so? :)

[Alfred Forns]

Great thread !!!

Colin I would stay away from spot metering form the kayak Just use the evaluative metering and go one under, will get you very close ... if you have blinkies then go under more !! For the spot you would need to have "only white" on the meter the open one an and one half !! Must easier and safer the other way !!!

[Colin Knight]

To find a better way to get to the same result.

I would argue that it's not to find a "better way", but a way for a better result because that's what I'm seeing with the 7D vs. my other models.

Why pointless? Do you think meter A should tell you to shoot at f5.6 1/125s ISO 400 but meter B should say f11 1/250 ISO 400 for the same scene that you are shooting? You really think so? :)

Sorry, I'm missing the point here. In manual, my camera's metering system never tells me what settings to use. It only tells me the resulting exposure of those settings. Likewise, in aperture or shutter priority, it tells me how the scene will look for a given aperture or shutter speed.

[Lance Peters]

It's a very nice image. I really like the pose and eye contact of the bird in this image with the bird standing on the branch.
The BG is just a touch too green for my tastes. I'ld maybe tone that down a little in PP, and just a couple more passes of sharpening/USM as well.



Lance I know what you've said here is subjective, but do you reccomend this option for a mostly white bird or one what only shows a small amount of white. Because I've exposed to the right and overexposed the white parts of the birds (ie: Magpie) to get more detail in the blacks, which I've then tried to recover in PSE, but I've never done this to a Red-necked Stint where it is mostly whitish (in non-breeding plumage)

Hi MARK - really wont make any difference if the bird is all white or partly white - as I said the real question is how much can you over expose and still recover the whites.
As I said its a dangerous move an one that should be used with much caution!

[Lance Peters]

Id Say metering systems can and are different - When the D3/D700 came out - Artie stopped giving exposure advice as the meter's in these cameras changed the way things worked a little - Im sure if you look back through the Educational resources forum the info will still be there!!

[Colin Knight]

Id Say metering systems can and are different - When the D3/D700 came out - Artie stopped giving exposure advice as the meter's in these cameras changed the way things worked a little - Im sure if you look back through the Educational resources forum the info will still be there!!

I couldn't agree more Lance. I can't accept the idea that metering systems are trying to find a better way to get the same result. It would be the only camera function like that- manufacturer's are trying to make AF better, ISO performance better, IQ better, WB better....I believe the same goes for metering. I think soon, if not now with certain cameras, we need to rethink the standard process of metering on whites and opening up, or metering on darks and closing down.

[Desmond Chan]

I couldn't agree more Lance. I can't accept the idea that metering systems are trying to find a better way to get the same result.

That is because there are some fundamentals that you simply do not understand and do not seem to have a clue about them. You said the exposure meter of your 7D was extremely accurate, that it was better than any that came with those previous cameras that you had owned. Now you said you could not accpet the idea that metering systems are trying to find a better way to get the same result ?? You want "better" or not?? :D:D

Whatever, cknight. I am sure if you just keep fiddling and you will get to whatever you want.

Oh well, this's my final response to this thread. Have a nice day !

[Colin Knight]

You said the exposure meter of your 7D was extremely accurate, that it was better than any that came with those previous cameras that you had owned. Now you said you could not accpet the idea that metering systems are trying to find a better way to get the same result ?? You want "better" or not?? :D:D

Right! They're not trying to find a better way for the same result, as you say, they're finding ways to get better results. That's what I'm seeing with the new metering system the 7D has- it gives me better results.

You seem to say that they all work the same, that they're just trying to find better ways to get the same result. I'm not seeing the same result at all.

I do stand by my assertion that the 7D metering works differently, and that it is better. As such, it may not be necessary to open up/close down as much in bright/dark scenes. At the very least, it works differently and gives different results.