Eider Portrait

[Richard Greenwood]

Not posted for a while as I've not had the opportunity to get out & about for a few weeks.

This shot was taken last week in Northumberland where the Eider Ducks are very obliging in Seahouses Harbour.

I'm quite pleased with this, my only personal criticism is that is it's too close to the right of the frame but there's no space in the full shot to crop any other way.



Exif: F8 +1/3, 1/800 ISO 400, 400mm zoom. Taken with a 450D & Tokina 80-400mm zoom.

C&C welcomed.

Richard

[John Chardine]

Hi Richard- I'm a big fan of tight portraits like this. Maybe a little more room on the right and less on the left would be good. A black and white bird is really tough subject when the sun is shining. There's just too much contrast for the camera sensor to perform well at both ends of the tonality spectrum. There is a patch of clipped whites on the cheek which may be dealt with in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) with the Recovery slider. I can just see some detail around the eye and would like to see more. You might want to try adding some Fill light in ACR (here I'm assuming you are shooting RAW). It would be great to coax some detail out of the eye area. Well done on this one though. I would love to get this close to an eider!

[Richard Greenwood]

Hi John,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately in the original shot there isn't any space on the right.

I've not taken the plunge with RAW yet - this was shot as a JPG. Thanks for the pointer re the eye. I was looking for the tool which could lighten that area but couldn't when I was running this through PSE8. Have found it now so will have a go!!

Thanks again,

Richard

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello Richard, you had a pretty impossible situation here. In order to expose properly for the blacks (and to get some detail in the eye, which is completely missing), you would have to blow out the whites even more. As John says, there is just too much contrast for the camera to process in this situation. Best to shoot in dawn or dusk conditions or with overcast skies. You can add canvas on the right if you use Photoshop, not sure about other software capabilities in that regard. Hope you get to shoot and post more!