Cute Little Bird

[Brownbear]

This adorable little bird was very shy so I couldn't manage to get as close as I wished, and it was partially back-lit so I used spot metering. I had my camera set to BIF (SS 2000, F9 and auto iso set to 1600, and an iso of 1600 was used)

I wish I could've had him/her looking at me but that wasn't possible and I missed the in-flight shot. I think it is cute but I wonder if I managed the lighting okay, and if not, how I can improve when I am faced with this type of lighting in future.




Thank you.

[Brownbear]

Have I overexposed the bird, ie; as seen by the unattractive grey background, and perhaps the bird is a little grey too?

[Otavio]

Have I overexposed the bird, ie; as seen by the unattractive grey background, and perhaps the bird is a little grey too?

Hi, Christina. I think you managed to control the light well. It is always difficult to shoot a backlit bird. In your case the lit part didnt clip the whites, and that is the good part. You could try to bump the contrast and saturation just a bit (dont clip the whites!), as backlit birds tend to "loose" some of the real color. Not sure if I was clear, but that is what I would try. So, I consider you did a good capture job here.

Cheers...

[FlyingSquirrel]

Christina,

I am not sure if you are aware of what you have photographed; it is one of the most difficult to photograph birds: The Kingfisher. I believe this would be a Belted King. They are one of my fave birds but are super hard to get close to. If you do much research on photographing them, it is typically recommended to use a blind (after you find where they perch often, you set up a blind before sunrise and play the waiting game).

Anyway, based on your description of the conditions, and seeing the photo, IMO you did an excellent job on it. I think you did extremely well with the lighting given what you were facing. It looks like you got the exposure pretty good because I DON'T see the signs that you would typically see in a photo that is underexposed and then pulled up (a bunch of blocky noise and globby tones). I can only guess that exposure was close and didn't require opening the shadows too much, which says a lot about your improving skills in dealing with tough lighting and metering. I wonder if you can pull the highlights down locally in the white feathers for more detail? I'd be interested in seeing the RAW file.

IMO the gray background looks nice. The bird color looks darn close to reality in my eyes. They are pretty much that gray color. Good job.

[ajsmith]

He is so cute. I was going to ask what type of bird he was, but Matt answered it. I think the bird looks beautiful against the gray background.

[Wavelength]

The bird is so cute; was the background sky or something else? what was the time then?
Regards

[Brownbear]

Hi Otavio,

Thank you. I am practicing on back lit birds so nice to hear that.

Here is the edit as suggested. I increased saturation by 8 and contrast by 14. Normally I don't add any contrast to my photos which means they stay neutral (for a natural look) but maybe I should. I think your suggestions improved the photo.



Thank you

Hi, Christina. I think you managed to control the light well. It is always difficult to shoot a backlit bird. In your case the lit part didnt clip the whites, and that is the good part. You could try to bump the contrast and saturation just a bit (dont clip the whites!), as backlit birds tend to "loose" some of the real color. Not sure if I was clear, but that is what I would try. So, I consider you did a good capture job here.

Cheers...

[Brownbear]

Hi Matt,

At the time no I was not aware what type of bird it was but I know now. Thank you. I could tell it was very shy but no hide needed.

The first time I met this bird was around 6:30am at the boat docks and only because I heard his cute little sing-song. It was still too dark to photograph him/her and I didn't have a tripod (as I don't use them on birds in flight) so I just rested my camera on a rail, and waited for the light to become a little better and I think he/she became accustomed to me being there. I had my 300 mm lens with an extender on, and set my camera to a SS of1/25 A 6.7 (as wide open as possible with the extender), exposure bias +2, iso 3200 (the max I was willing to go). I spot metered off of the feathers on the head.

Here is an image from that day... too soft and obviously an awful background



I returned the next day, spotted him and followed him/her around until he/she rested on a rail, waited and just approached slowly, a wee bit at a time, as close as I could manage. This time it was 8:30 am and the light was much better, and I left my camera set to BIF because I was hoping to capture him/her in flight. Spot metered off of the feathers on the head because I'm practicing back-lit photos. (this blew the ocean in the background)

Here is the raw file as shot

Processed in LR
Exp +1.2
Highlights -100
Clarity +14

Then I sharpened just the bird by 25% and added clarity of 26%. I also burned the bottom white feathers by 30%. No more room to adjust highlights as they were already -100... And finally I added contrast of 14 and saturation of 8 as suggested by Otavio. Cropped heavily to focus on the bird.





Thank you. I am going to try and find him/her again.

Christina,

I am not sure if you are aware of what you have photographed; it is one of the most difficult to photograph birds: The Kingfisher. I believe this would be a Belted King. They are one of my fave birds but are super hard to get close to. If you do much research on photographing them, it is typically recommended to use a blind (after you find where they perch often, you set up a blind before sunrise and play the waiting game).

Anyway, based on your description of the conditions, and seeing the photo, IMO you did an excellent job on it. I think you did extremely well with the lighting given what you were facing. It looks like you got the exposure pretty good because I DON'T see the signs that you would typically see in a photo that is underexposed and then pulled up (a bunch of blocky noise and globby tones). I can only guess that exposure was close and didn't require opening the shadows too much, which says a lot about your improving skills in dealing with tough lighting and metering. I wonder if you can pull the highlights down locally in the white feathers for more detail? I'd be interested in seeing the RAW file.

IMO the gray background looks nice. The bird color looks darn close to reality in my eyes. They are pretty much that gray color. Good job.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Ali and Nandakumar,

Yes, very cute indeed and I hope I am lucky enough to spot him/her again. The background was the ocean. The photo was taken around 8:30am, much better than the first photo which was at 6:30am

[FlyingSquirrel]

Normally I don't add any contrast to my photos which means they stay neutral (for a natural look) but maybe I should

I think I might know what you mean by "natural looking" and "neutral" when referring to photos: I used to be afraid to crank things up in editing for fear that it would look overdone. Then I started practicing and experimenting more, reading more, etc and I realized that my photos were very flat. In FACT, in virtually all cases, a RAW photo will not be natural looking OOC. Not to repeat what everyone always says, but basically you are working with a digital negative. There is no processing on the file whatsoever excluding the actual work the camera does to convert the data from analog to digital and then go through the whole demosaicing process etc. Point is, the file is nothing whatsoever like reality. Most people (NOT saying this is you) that either look down upon processing, or have little experience processing, don't understand how critical it is. That typically includes the camp of people (again, not you) that believe you can get everything right in camera in the field and then editing a file is not necessary. Nonsense!!! A RAW file needs to be processed properly to bring the photo up to a realistic look (or something else if that is what is desired)

Though it will depend on the shot and your objective in editing, in most cases you should add contrast. (I do most editing in pshop, so I use curves and lce, and masks for localized adjustments- when I say "add contrast" I don't necessarily mean turning up the contrast slider in LR) In this case, IMO, the photo needs lce and contrast. It is pretty flat looking to me. You'd need to do local adjustments to avoid further blowout of the highlight feathers.

Regarding the Kingfisher and using a blind, that would typically be for the purposes of: Birds that are less accustomed to humans than your little buddy apparently was (usually in natural ponds and stream areas where the birds are more "wild"), but more so the point is to get MUCH closer to the animal for frame filling portraits and natural behavior (i.e. fishing and feeding activities, preening, etc). Getting really really close to wild specimens is where it gets tough, from what I've read in 99.9% of cases.

[FlyingSquirrel]

I forgot something. I noticed you added +1.2 exposure. 2 things. First, I can't believe how decent that file looks having upped the exposure over a full stop after the fact. I'd expect way more noise and looking really bad. Must be a sexy camera. And Second and more importantly, I don't recall for sure but I believe that if you up exposure that much in post and the highlights blow out, you might not get them all back via highlight -100. I could be wrong. I'd try localized exposure + instead of global. That way you are not increasing exposure on the highlights, you are doing it only where you want (the birds shadow areas). Could be wrong but you might try that.

[Brownbear]

Hi Matt,

Thank you for your very helpful and informative reply. I will have to read the post processing advice a few more times to digest it all. Post processing is something that I am still working on learning, and even though I have come a long way in my skills I still have a lot to learn, and I intend to hunker down and learn it all this fall and winter.

About being closer I am in full agreement, and I tried to get closer with this little bird but couldn't manage it... The first shot was taken about 3-4 meters away, he/she was sitting on a rail on a boat dock, and flew away as soon as I tried. The 2nd shot was even closer but same story.. I will try if I see this bird again...

As always thank you for taking the time to share and advise. Truly appreciated.

PS Yes, I'm very happy with my new camera...

[Shadowman]

This adorable little bird was very shy so I couldn't manage to get as close as I wished, and it was partially back-lit so I used spot metering. I had my camera set to BIF (SS 2000, F9 and auto iso set to 1600, and an iso of 1600 was used)

I wish I could've had him/her looking at me but that wasn't possible and I missed the in-flight shot. I think it is cute but I wonder if I managed the lighting okay, and if not, how I can improve when I am faced with this type of lighting in future.


Thank you.

I think they know we want them to turn around so they purposely pretend to ignore us. Nice photo.

[Benjy]

Christina,Fandabidozi

[Brownbear]

Hi Mate,

I had to look that word up, too

Thank you. (I couldn't find a Scottish equivalent)

It twas a twee bird and a bit of wangle... The Best of British to me to find one with a fish in its' mouth... Looks like it is the same little bird but in a different colour...

Christina,Fandabidozi

[Benjy]

Christina,Scottish equivalent.....Ta,Ta much,google The Krankies for fandabidozi

[Brownbear]

Ta, Ta Bernard.

That is exactly where I found "fandabidozi" interesting language...

When I manage to capture the bird with a fish in its' beak you will be the first to know... There are plenty of fish in the ocean, so perhaps one day.

Cheerio!

Christina,Scottish equivalent.....Ta,Ta much,google The Krankies for fandabidozi

[Dusty]

Christina not a bad effort.

You have overexposed the bird which should be a richer grey than what you have exposed for. These little Kingfisher are so difficult to catch in flight unless you are really good and know your camera inside out and back to front. Now you have a image of one you should have a better idea of what to have your camera in terms of exposure when you next see one sitting there.

Remember practise makes you a better photographer.

Dave.

[Brownbear]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your feedback. This is my first Kingfisher so I'm not familiar with its colouring. My overexposure was in my post-processing.

Yes, indeed. I'm practicing on pigeons...

Christina not a bad effort.

You have overexposed the bird which should be a richer grey than what you have exposed for. These little Kingfisher are so difficult to catch in flight unless you are really good and know your camera inside out and back to front. Now you have a image of one you should have a better idea of what to have your camera in terms of exposure when you next see one sitting there.

Remember practise makes you a better photographer.

Dave.