Tufted Duck

[AlvanBuckley]

Taken last December in Newfoundland.

My plane got cancelled so I had the opportunity to spend an extra day in Newfoundland, I didn't regret it!

There isn't much detail in the white area and the dark cheek area doesn't have much detail either. How would you suggest bringing out detail in both areas - either via post-processing or preferably when I'm actually taking the image?

ISO 400
0 ev
f/5.6
SS 1/800
Nikon D300s + VR 80-400 @ 400mm
no flash


C&C always appreciated!
thanks in advance
-Alvan Buckley

[Peter Farrell]

Very nice detail in the blacks, nice HA and I really like the waves front and rear of the duck. The whites on the ducks body are pretty hot.
Peter

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Man, I just love the water, the wave, and the water buildup in front of the duck. It looks remarkably similar to a ring-billed duck; same head and eye color, and same exposure challenges. Since the dynamic range (bright to dark) is too great the camera sensor can not capture all of it, and at best you'll lose detail(clip) either the lightest or darkest part of the image. At worst you'll lose it at both ends, The only way to get both light in dark exposed properly is have lighting that reducess the dynamic range, which is called soft or low contrast light , which occurs with cloudy or overcast skys. There is no satisfactory post-processing solution, but if I had no choice I'd expose for the dark parts and try to recover the clipped highlights in ACR or whatever RAW converter you are using, followed by a few photoshop tricks that are mentioned here at BPN. regards~Bill

[Arthur Morris]

Wicked wake and a nice head angle and a beautiful bird. Water color is lovely.

However, you need to put in some time and learn about exposure. Nikons tend to mega-overexpose with bright whites again dark blue with the sun out. I use Canon but I know that you should have been at at least -1 stop EC, not zero..... Your whites are not bright, they are toasted, burned, and gone forever. From the screen cap made while holding the ALT key down in Levels and and clicking on the highlight slider you can see the huge overexposure. The box in RED shows the clipping on the right end of the histogram.

I would advise several things: to learn exposure and histograms get a copy of ABP II and study the section called Exposure Simplified. You need to learn to check for flashing highlights and to read your histogram. You need to study!

Next would be to go to the ER Forum and study the tutorials on Saving the Whites and on converting over-exposed RAW files.

I would disagree with Bill's adivce above. In this situation you need to expose for the whites permitting just a very few flashing pixels at most and then do your best with the blacks in post....

Once you give away the whites as you did there the image is un-salvageable. You might try starting from scratch with the RAW file after you read the Saving the White tutorial but it looks to me as if that will meet with failure. Digital is forgiving and amazing but you can't make huge errors with whites in the sun....

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Arthur; I said what I would do, and that is sacrifice the whites, even though I think it is a lost cause with this image.

The question to me, and a avery important one; is it better to sacrifice the darks or the lights if you have no other choice, and which are you more likely to recover from? Of couse there is a point of no return, as in this image, but I'm referring to less extreme lighting where the choice need to be made nontheless. Even with the best technique, complete understanding of histograms, camera metering systems, etc. we are often confronted by this dilemma.
In the first place, my contention is that it is impossible to get proper exposure with such a colored bird (extreme dark/light difference)under this type lighting. Do you agree or disagree? I've been wrong before, as you well know, but am I wrong here? I stand to be corrected.

It may be the case that no detail in shadows or dark parts of an image simply looks better than no detail in the highlights, and is more acceptable to the viewer since we don't expect to see alot of detail in shadows or dark parts of an image, and on that account I agree with you.
On the other hand there are a number of tools that can be used to attempt recovery of clipped highlights, and very few to recover blocked blacks. There is simply too little digital information to work with. The clipped highlights have way too much digital information, but it might still be there , which makes highlight recovery possible in the first place.
As usual I appreciate your guidance. regards~Bill

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful low angle and the blues in the water makes this work well...

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Bill, Once you sacrifice the WHITEs, all is lost there is no detail and nothing to print. The word on the street, going back even to the ancient days of film, is to expose for the WHITEs. As far as "recovering" clipped WHITEs (and I assume that you mean doing so during conversion), you can truly recover detail in the WHITEs only if it is there. Once you begin over-exposing your white to the tune of more than a few flashing pixels, the only recovery is that at times, the WHITEs are replaced with detail-less grey....

There is lots that we can do do bring back some of the detail in the dark areas even if clipped. The trick is not to overdo it and to be content with some detail-less areas in shadowed BLACKs and other dark tones.

I agree 100% that capturing all the detail both the WHITEs and the BLACKs in an image like this made in bright sun is impossible.

And I agree that with this image even starting over with the RAW would be a lost cause.

When you have a choice between saving the highlights or the details you always need to save the highlights.