Mega High Key White Tern
This mega-high key image was first inspired by a Todd Gustafson Cheetah image that he intentionally over-exposed four stops on a bright sunny day. All that you saw against the over-exposed background were the eyes, the bright pink gums,. and the yellowed teeth–everything in shadow. When I shared a Laysan Albatross image of the same ilk at the introductory Midway slide program everyone loved it. Then Paul Mckenzie suggested that the same approach might work well with a White Tern on a bright sunny day. So I tried it.
This image was created with the Canon 800mm f/5.L IS lens, a 25mm Extension Tube, the 1.4X III TC, and the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering at +2 stops: 1/400 sec. at f/11 set manually.
The original image was intentionally over-exposed at creation and lightened further during conversion. I did lots of bill clean-up as the bird’s beak was a mess.
Note: if you put the extension tube in front of the TC as I did here you will be able to focus closer than if the TC were mounted in front of the tube. You will however need to focus manually. These situations are discussed in detail in ABP II (916 pages on CD only).
The above was adapted from tonight's blog post, Minor Surgery...
I am going to give this a try. I think what makes this so successful is the lovely colored bill.
