Red-necked Phalarope (I think)

[wendell westfall]

D90 70-200VR+2X 1/2000 f6.3 ISO1000 -2/3 EV handheld

I found this little guy this morning, "nervously" pecking around in a shallow pond adjacent to a large marsh. If I'm right about the ID it's my first sighting of this species. I was six feet above the bird and could not have changed that. Because of that black marking I had a problem getting an image with the bird's eye (and catchlight) showing clearly, but with this exposure I captured it with no PP needed. In fact, I did little PP beyond a small crop, NR and sharpening in LR3, though I did move the Recovery slider a bit to correct a very small hot spot on the bird's head.

Wendell

[Arthur Morris]

Wendell, Please head to the ER and study the various posts on saving the whites. As presented, the whites are toasted: over-exposed and detail-less. How are you converting? Did the ORIG have flashing highlights???

The stuff in the screen capture shows that the highlights (in the red box) are pegged....

Nice calm water and yes, a juvie Red-necked Phalarope. But you need to master the basics of EXP. With the sun out and the dark blue water I would have suggested -1 1/3 stops with a Nikon camera....

[AlvanBuckley]

Looks like a Red-necked.
Beautiful reflection on the water. The whites on the back half of the bird look a little over exposed. I like how you can see the leg in the water. Considering your limitations this looks like a great picture. Maybe crop some off the top, but that could be a personal preference!
TFS

[wendell westfall]

Artie, I took a quick look at the threads on "whites" in the ER section and was impressed at the info there. I will study it carefully. I shoot RAW with a Nikon D90, import into Lightroom3 as a NEF, and for this image PPed it entirely in Lightroom; then it is exported as a JPEG to my desktop after which the image is brought into BPN. I recollect (original moves destroyed, darn it) the original image having only a small crescent-shaped red overlay on the head just under the eye. And this was easily and completely corrected with the Recovery slider -- no whites remained pegged. (By the way, I do not recall any blinkies in the camera LCD when I took the picture this morning). I realize I'm offering a rather nebulous response, but it's the best I can do on this one. Thanks for your interest.

[wendell westfall]

Alvan, thanks for your ID confirmation and your comments. Looks like my exposure was a bit off . . .

[Arthur Morris]

All of the above is good and if the info in Pane #4 is correct then your exposure was good, actually perfect. Your problems arose after conversion and should be easily correctable if you employ a good workflow both in optimizing the image in Photosshop (do you do that) and preparing the JPEG.

[wendell westfall]

Artie, I optimize the image in either Lightroom3 or PS Elements (or both) . And I Export from Lightroom3 as a JPEG (I'll check my settings). I'll also check for flashing highlights later in my workflow (but I thought I did that in this instance).

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, I optimize the image in either Lightroom3 or PS Elements (or both) . And I Export from Lightroom3 as a JPEG (I'll check my settings). I'll also check for flashing highlights later in my workflow (but I thought I did that in this instance).

Best to start from scratch and check along the way by going to Levels, holding down the ALT key, and putting the cursor on the Highlights Slider. Hot pixels will show up as white on a field of black. No flashing highlights per se.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: I Look forward to seeing a repost with the whites controlled.