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Thread: I'm so beautiful!

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    Default I'm so beautiful!

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    Momma loon lost her egg. It was rotten and she kept a vigil, the nest platform is just behind the loon here. I was estatic to get this one.

    Canon EOS-1D Mark II N, Shooting Date/Time 7/22/2011 6:16:17 PM, Aperture-Priority AE, Shutter Speed 1/500, Aperture Value 2.8, Center-Weighted Average Metering, Exposure Compensation -2, ISO Speed 200, EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM, RAW. From 9 feet away in my Kayak and 90% of frame left here.

    From tonight’s foray into the ponds. Let me know what you think.

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    Forum Participant Joe Senzatimore's Avatar
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    Nice low angle and great color in the water. I think the head needs to be lightened up and the eye as well. Also run some NR in the BG.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    The entire image is several stops underexposed leaving the head dead black and without detail. I worked hard on the repost with little success. Best to start from scratch by re-converting properly.
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    Sorry about that one folks! I recently lost my hard drive and monitor. I did this one real tired. I kayaked almost 6 miles. Here it is a bit lighter. I underexposed on purpose. The loon had direct sun, over 102 degrees as well. I did not want to blow the whites. At 2.8, hot sun, tired kayaker etc etc. Up at 2:43 am in the morning just to view my post!
    Last edited by Grady Weed; 07-23-2011 at 01:43 AM.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Still much too dark. How do you convert?
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    BPN Member Paul Lagasi's Avatar
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    Agree with above, Grady. Love the angle and composition, can't get enough of these beauties. Maybe a tad more room on the right.

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    I use Canons Digital Photography Pro, use the tools to make some tweaks, then convert it with same to a tiff file, go to CS4. Make final changes there, use the shadow and highlights tool mostly. Somtetimes levels, curves. Here I did not want to over use them and introduce too much noise.

    Here is another pose, slightly different head angle just seconds away. There is a water push or wave as a boat had passed by. So some may think the water is higher in the front right or off level. But it is level. I have to away for a few hours/ I will check back here after 1:30 pm. See you. And thanks Artie for your interest. All of you thanks.
    Last edited by Grady Weed; 07-23-2011 at 06:58 AM.

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    Grady, I feel your pain. When I had to re calibrate my monitor it took me two weeks to get it right.

    I agree with Artie, your re-post is still too dark on my monitor.

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    A lovely image that I would be pleased to have. Your repost is better, but I agree it's still just a bit dark on my screen (IMHO Artie's looks too light, but of course he wasn't working from the original).

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    I am back.

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    Hi Grady,

    It is indeed tough to get detail in the blacks on these guys without blowing the whites. But it looks to me like there were two problems with the original capture here. One is that you were a bit too timid about underexposing to save the whites. You really need to push the whites to the bleeding edge and maybe even a bit over and hope that they are recoverable in RAW, which can be extremely forgiving with the use of tools like the Recovery slider and selective use of the Adjustment Brush in the RAW converter. Even though this is risky with regard to the whites, it tends to be a better approach than underexposing and trying to recover detail in the blacks. The black detail may have been lost entirely and/or recovering it will reveal an unacceptable amount of noise. Losing a few images to overexposed whites is likely preferable to losing way more images due to underexposed blacks.

    The second thing that might have helped is to wait for the bird to turn its head entirely toward the light. In this case, it looks like the head needed to be at least parallel to the sensor or even a bit past parallel for the face to be fully lit. You can see how you did get more detail in the forehead just above the bill which was the only part of the head being hit directly by the light. You can be watching these guys and suddenly the entire face will light up when the head is turned toward the light. That tends to be the best time to capture an image as you need all of the help you can get to get detail in those blacks without overexposing the whites.

    That's my two cents ... looking forward to more Maine Loons!

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    I normaly push the whites, I did on these loons and then re-dialed-in my exposure, to the limit and then back off. I wanted to catch the whites with full details, as this one is. There just was not more that what you see for color in the blacks.So...I made a choice to get the whites and try to recover the blacks with minimal introduced noise in CS4. Anyway...

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    BPN Viewer Charles Glatzer's Avatar
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    Grady,

    The key as Mike mentioned is to push the whites to the edge of clipping, as this will render detail in the dark tones as well. While the whites will look like they lack detail on your LCD, the detail will in fact be recorded on the sensor, as taken above. In postproduction you can extract the highlight detail without having to lighten the dark tones. It is also imperative that the head be angled towards the light source, only depressing the shutter when you see the red eye.

    Moreover, I highly suggest shooting in Manual mode with the loons.

    Your stated exposure does not equate to under-exposing the loon in direct sunlight, 1/500 @ f/2.8 ISO 200 would severely over expose the entire image? I would recheck the aperture in meta data.

    Trust me here, I've taken a few loon photos over the years, wink.
    http://www.shootthelight.com/#/Portf...oon%20images/1

    Hope to see you one of these days.

    Best,

    Chas
    Last edited by Charles Glatzer; 07-23-2011 at 04:33 PM.

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    Some very nice loons there Chas!

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    great low angle and pose, except for Artie's repost all other images look too dark on my screen.
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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Grady sent me a check for $10,000 US along with the RAW file after I agreed to work on it. As you can see by giving the animated GIF a moment to play, the original was huge underexposure.

    Grady, the brightest WHITE values in the image were about 225 or so. You had tons more room to push the histogram to the right. Those above who suggested that you aim for just a few easily recoverable blinkies were right on the money. Having to open the image up so much resulted in a ton of noise as well as somewhat of a color shift (to green).

    The best tack is always to get it right in the field.

    Please don't forget to send the check :)
    Last edited by Arthur Morris; 07-25-2011 at 04:56 PM.
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    It's in the mail! :eek:

    Thanks for the lesson Artie. I can clearly see the difference. I will apply the suggestions in the next visit to the loons.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Good plan and have fun. artie

    ps: don't forget the check!
    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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