Posted an image of this bird about a month ago, this is another from the same session. It was early morning, this little fella was waiting for the fishermen to hook something so he could easily grab the hooked fish before it could be reeled in. So he was very patient for me, sat still(ish) in in very nice light but was just a little too close most of the time... beggar's cannot be choosers however and I was very grateful for his time none the less... This is full frame, but I have removed a little of the darker coloured water from around/behind the beak.
Canon 1D4 and 500F4IS
1/2000 sec at F8, ISO 800
AP mode, not sure of any exp bias, but should have been slightly negative from where I took it.
Used a home made bean bag and was lying on the pier/jetty deck
Full frame..
A very unusual image, the dark water makes me a little unsure regards composition. If this is a crop I would suggest it may have even more impact if the bird was a little smaller in the frame and then possibly the dark water would be contained at the bottom and perhaps on the right.
The colours in the bird are amazing, perhaps the whites are just a little hot.
The water in this image (both FG and BG) is actually quite lovely and showcases your bird rather well. You have a great HA and nice exposure. You stated that you could move from the position you were in and obviously couldn't get any lower than the jetty. I don't see your whites touching the right side of the histogram, and I do see a lot of details there. I think you could bring out some details in the blacks though with a Shadows/Highlights adjustment or Viveza if you have it. I did a quick Shadows pass at I think 15 pts. I am sure you could do a lot more with this capture if you took some time to play with it from the RAW. PS is not my forte.
I like the details in the shadows that Marina's repost has.
what a beautiful cormorant. excellent water and shooting angle. If you start with raw file again, reduce the contrast a bit and play with the curves, you might be able to get more dynamic range. Tough bird to expose, definitely.
Thanks for the input guys... I must admit to spending a lot of time playing with different techniques to get the most out of this image but I have never really nailed it, so your input is especially valuable, I shall try as you both suggested. I have only PS and no other significant plug ins. I wish I had dropped the exposure by half a stop, at the time my excitement just got the better of me...
It looks as though your exposure was pretty good here. The problem is you were working in fairly high light with a subject with a lot of black and white. If you had added light, you would have blown your whites, and if you had taken away light, your black would have been even darker. In this kind of case, you need to decide on the best scenario for your subject and then do what you have to do in post processing. Take it into PS; click on Image, then Adjustments; then Shadows/Highlights and play with it a little bit. Keep in mind that a little goes a long way.
Thanks Marina. I have used the shadows/highlights option before but not sure i did so this time. I will try again. What I did do in the presented image is a trick that I think I learnt from Robert Ameroso (spelling not right, sorry Robert) from the landscape forum. The 'trick' is to hold down the control key (in PS) and under the 'channels' tab select 'RGB'. I believe this selects the highlighted areas at 100% and the darker areas at progressively less than 100. I then tweek the levels to bring back the close to blown whites without darkening the blacks...sort of squeezing the histogram together, but I am not sure I have got this right. will play more tonight... thanks again for your assistance..
Reprocessed this file using different Shadows/highlights as Marina suggested. First attempt I overcooked it and ended up with muddied whites (but lots of detail in the black...) so tried again to get the attached. I think its an improvement over the OP, the best compromise and so I would like to thank Marina again for her input. Processing Black on white can be quite demanding apparently... lesson learned...