Little Grebe - Backlit

[Humberto Ramos]

This is an image if two little Grebe's fghting, It was taken with the sun in front of the camera at about 45º up.

This one is my favorite, but I have three more that I would like to share with you.

The images where taken with a Canon 7D, a canon 100-400mm and aquatic hide (it was taken in the first I tried my "new" blind)

1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 400

If you don't mind, please tell me the one you prefer.

Thanks

First image:


(since I can't (not recommended) post more than one image per post, the other three image's will post the link...

Second image

Third image

Fourth image

[Randy Stout]

Humberto:

There is a sense of mystery here, you can tell some tremendous action is going on, but it is lit in such a way, it is hard to tell exactly what.

Without the context of being there, it will be harder for most viewers to understand the story you are telling. Perhaps if it was slightly lighter, we could see more detail.

Cheers

Randy

[Humberto Ramos]

Humberto:

There is a sense of mystery here, you can tell some tremendous action is going on, but it is lit in such a way, it is hard to tell exactly what.

Without the context of being there, it will be harder for most viewers to understand the story you are telling. Perhaps if it was slightly lighter, we could see more detail.

Cheers

Randy

Thanks Randy,
I tried to lighter the image, the problem are the blacks, lots of noise appear.

[Randy Stout]

Humberto:

I suspected that might be the issue. Backlit images are always an exposure challenge, not to blow out all the highlights but still provided enough light to tell what the heck is going on.

When they work, they can be great, so worth the challenge.

Cheers

Randy

[Humberto Ramos]

I forgot to mention, I send the first image to the WPOTY 2011, in the same category Artie had is amazing image honored, "Creative Visions of Nature", my image went to the semi-finals.

[Greg Basco]

Humberto, I absolutely love this. The light and the composition are just fantastic. Of the four, I do like the one posted here best. Great work!

Cheers,
Greg

[dankearl]

I think as a photo image, it is really cool. Not really a bird image, maybe more fitting for OOTB, but it is really well
Done, it looks like a meteor shower. I would crop some off the bottom.
The second is my favorite.

[Richard Stern]

Hi,

I agree with Dankearl - a superb image but perhaps in more of an abstract than an avian category. Overall very pleasing to the eye. I prefer this one to all those linked, mainly because the water droplets draw the eye more.

Richard

[Stu Bowie]

Humberto, your posted image and second work best for me. The flying droplets certainly stand out against the darker BG, and well done for trying something OOTB. Im trying to work out how the BG became so dark looking towards the sun, as your settings dont indicate you underexposed. Where Im going with this, is if your original in camera is slightly lighter, you could maybe recover some detail without introducing more noise.

[Humberto Ramos]

Humberto, your posted image and second work best for me. The flying droplets certainly stand out against the darker BG, and well done for trying something OOTB. Im trying to work out how the BG became so dark looking towards the sun, as your settings dont indicate you underexposed. Where Im going with this, is if your original in camera is slightly lighter, you could maybe recover some detail without introducing more noise.

Behind the grebe there was a large bib and very tree, and the sun behind the tree, the horizontal wihte area in the picture is the sun reflecting in the water (the bird included), and everything else was in the shadow. I was in av mode, and the camera saw so many light that underexposed the picture.

The original is a bit more lighter, but you don'd have any detail in the dark areas that you can "pull out", and if you try to get some detail, you get a bunch of noise. On lightroom controls I have darkened the blacks and shadows on controls and lightened the whites in the picture above, lowered the saturation a bit and sharpness after resised....

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks for the info Humberto - I now understand why the original was dark. We learn from these images, and not sure if you can go back to this location and experiment with different settings. I realise the coots wont be fighting in the same spot.