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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Default Usually Not My Faves...

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    I photographed this flapping Mute Swan on the JBWR/Nickerson Beach IPT in fairly early morning light. I took several long series of these guys flapping after baths. (I have a thing against large introduced species that beat up the regularly occurring nesters but as Denise says, blame the folks who brought them here not the birds :)

    Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D MIV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/2000 sec. at f/6.3.

    My favorite part of the image is the elegant pose.

    Don't be shy; all comments welcome.
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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Artie:

    Perfect exposure on this one. Pose is nice, esp. like the tail clear of the water.

    Nice comp.

    Cheers

    Randy

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    Hi Artie. Agree with your comments above. Great exposure showing those pearl white feathers and the light blue water makes a great combination. Gary.

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    Ditto Randy- Perfect exposure! I love the sharp details and the sweet posing face. It's a lovely swan and a lovely image.

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    As mentioned, very nice exposure and beautiful detail in the whites. Great wing position and S-shape of the body. There are a very small number of water drops and one prominant one that could be removed because they are too few to make an impact- not a deal-breaker though.

    I read a paper a while ago suggesting that Mute Swans are native to North America. It has since been largely discredited mainly because it was not peer-reviewed. Conservation agencies generally use 50 years as the cut-off beyond which an introduced species is considered native.

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    If the entire water was that ice blue it would put it over the top. I like how the feathers on his body make him look cuddly soft in addition to being able to discern all the ones on the wings.

    I have seen in previous posts you asking the poster how they arrived at their exposure. Do you mind sharing how you did for this ?

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Tracy View Post
    If the entire water was that ice blue it would put it over the top. I like how the feathers on his body make him look cuddly soft in addition to being able to discern all the ones on the wings. I have seen in previous posts you asking the poster how they arrived at their exposure. Do you mind sharing how you did for this ?
    Agree on the water; darn those phragmites on the far shore. As for the EXP, I have been indicating how I come up with the EXP on practically every image that I have published for the past two decades and did so here in Pane #1: Evaluative metering +2/3 stop. :)
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    Artie, yes the pose is indeed very elegant and the whites are terrific.

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    Nico Steenberg
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    Astonishing details captured in the whites ! Like the pose and comp. Good DOF and natural water colours. Well done sir :)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Tracy View Post
    If the entire water was that ice blue it would put it over the top. I like how the feathers on his body make him look cuddly soft in addition to being able to discern all the ones on the wings. I have seen in previous posts you asking the poster how they arrived at their exposure. Do you mind sharing how you did for this ?
    Mike, With regards to my post in Pane #7, did I misunderstand your question above?
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

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    You handled the whites really well, Artie; I salute you for getting out of bed so early. Shots like yours show why ill-informed, well-intentioned people couldn't resist the temptation to introduce these beautiful birds to North America.

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    Thanks Craig, I am almost always out of bed way-early....
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

    Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,

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    Nice enough image. It would have been better if the head didn't intersect with the birds wing.

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    You might have misunderstood me since you stated your settings but not how you arrived at them. My question was meant to benefit those who might be new to photography / BPN or exposing for white subjects and it was my hope you would share a couple of your methods with them.

    Looked at this swan for the fist time since my initial post. I like him even more this go around.

    If I disappear for a few days and don't reply it's due to having to cull a couple thousand surf images from today and hitting those gnarly :cool: waves myself tomorrow. Shaka.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Thanks Mike, I figured out after the fact that that might be what you were looking for. +2/3 was my first choice there and a quick check of the histogram proved that I was right on. The soft light, lots of white in the frame, and light blue water (caused by the soft, early light), and knowledge of my camera--the MIV, led me to +2/3. Ooops. I forgot 28 years of trying to understand exposure :) FWIW, +1 probably would have worked just fine.

    I am doing a piece on exposure in the next Bulletin that basically says, "Add or subtract light so that you have data at least halfway into the right-most box on the histogram without having any flashing highlights and you will have a workable if not perfect EXP."
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

    Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,

    E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.










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