Seagull in Flight C&C appreciated

[Cantab]

Christina, I've just now revisted this thread. To my mind this is a really good set of gull shots. One of the attractions of the first photo is that the silvery grey reflection, or whatever it is, in the water is sumilar to the gull's colouring. The third and fourth are dramatic. Is that the result of heavy duty pp or somewhat that way in the original? The second to last photo is a wonderful landing shot.

Were these photos taken from dry land or were you out on the water?

[Brownbear]

Thank you, Bruce

Yes, I think for the first shot for some reason the water works, but I'm not sure why...

All the photos are pretty close to as shot.. Mostly photographed from a dock as it gets me higher up, more on level with the gulls. The dramatic ones were taken from the top of a ferry, an overhead shot.. I think I decreased the exposure a little bit more than shot and it seemed to work, but note that the tails and heads are overexposed.

Thank you... I do have lots of gulls to practice on in preparation for another visit from an eagle, one day.

[Shadowman]

Still reading...

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAbou.../document_view

[Brownbear]

Thank you John,

It's an informative article that I will likely read a few times... Right now I keep going back and forth between different types of metering to see which works best.. spot metering is hard when water is in the background...

Still reading...

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAbou.../document_view

[nimitzbenedicto]

T.....
... Right now I keep going back and forth between different types of metering to see which works best.. spot metering is hard when water is in the background...

Hi Christina,

Above quote is one of the reasons why I find your threads very informative.

Plus, of course, the valuable info given by our BIF/wildlife gurus here on CiC.

Thanks to all.

Have a nice day shooting.............

[jprzybyla]

I read the article posted above regarding exposing white birds using the spot metering mode of a camera. I ask this question... what do you do when the area that is blowing out, clipping, overexposing is too small to spot meter? This is why and where spot metering fails because it is not all of the bird that is overexposing, it is small areas that are the culprit. You can spot meter the bird and those areas will still be white blobs without detail. I have tried it. The only way I have found to assure no areas are clipped is to use the highlight screen on the LCD display and using the +/- EV control underexpose until the blinking stops and possibly for security go 1/3 stop under that. Then is post processing adjust to the correct exposure.

Here is an example, shot at -1EV. Exposure adjusted in post processing.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Joe

Great example... Albeit my gulls have been upstaged by your gorgeous egret shot...

I read the article posted above regarding exposing white birds using the spot metering mode of a camera. I ask this question... what do you do when the area that is blowing out, clipping, overexposing is too small to spot meter? This is why and where spot metering fails because it is not all of the bird that is overexposing, it is small areas that are the culprit. You can spot meter the bird and those areas will still be white blobs without detail. I have tried it. The only way I have found to assure no areas are clipped is to use the highlight screen on the LCD display and using the +/- EV control underexpose until the blinking stops and possibly for security go 1/3 stop under that. Then is post processing adjust to the correct exposure.

Here is an example, shot at -1EV. Exposure adjusted in post processing.

[jprzybyla]

No intention to upstage your gulls Christina... you wrote you did very little post processing. My point was that it is not the whole bird the blows out rather it is little areas where the light hits differently that in most instances are too small to spot meter.

[Shadowman]

I read the article posted above regarding exposing white birds using the spot metering mode of a camera. I ask this question... what do you do when the area that is blowing out, clipping, overexposing is too small to spot meter? This is why and where spot metering fails because it is not all of the bird that is overexposing, it is small areas that are the culprit. You can spot meter the bird and those areas will still be white blobs without detail. I have tried it. The only way I have found to assure no areas are clipped is to use the highlight screen on the LCD display and using the +/- EV control underexpose until the blinking stops and possibly for security go 1/3 stop under that. Then is post processing adjust to the correct exposure.

Here is an example, shot at -1EV. Exposure adjusted in post processing.

If the area is too small then matrix metering might be a better option. Most of the photographers on that link use 500-600mm lenses and are probably very close to the nest.

[Brownbear]

Hi Joe,

I very well know that... I was joking... your glorious egret and my plain jane gulls... As always I am truly very appreciative of all your help and I'm very happy that you posted a reply with an example because of course once I read that article I started pondering everything I do when photographing birds, so your reply was very reassuring... One day I will know enough so I don't sway back and forth so much on my techniques.. right now I'm just learning and the spot vs matrix metering thing is driving me a little bonkers.

On these shots I did very little processing because they were pretty good as is. But did you note how much processing I did when I tried to save my eagle shot? I'm learning my way around LR very well.. Thank you for all your help.

A huge thank you... And please keep posting your birds and anything you wish on my threads... I love being inspired..

No intention to upstage your gulls Christina... you wrote you did very little post processing. My point was that it is not the whole bird the blows out rather it is little areas where the light hits differently that in most instances are too small to spot meter.

[jprzybyla]

Hello John, I almost always use Matrix Metering, it is predictable to me and Nikon's software does a good job of balancing everything. The areas in the egret that were clipping was the breast between the wing and the ruffled feathers and the neck and head area. I need to set the exposure to -1EV or those two areas would have been pure white blobs with no detail. Sometimes on a bird there are many exposures where dodging and burning are necessary to show it at it's best. Sometimes just one exposure but different from the background. The wonderful advantage of computers, software and post processing is that you can do that.

[jprzybyla]

Hello Christina, I did a quick work up of one of the jpegs of your gulls. I lowered the exposure of the whole image, added a touch of Vibrance which made the blue more saturated. Then with the Adjustment Brush I worked on the bird alone, adding clarity and lowering the exposure slightly. Best I could do with a jpeg. I did notice however that the image was only 0.7 MP, that would seem to indicate that it is a very large crop because your camera has over 24 MP. Actually the detail is outstanding if it was such a large crop, imagine when you are posting images that are near full frame or full frame the quality you can achieve.



I think I just figured out the 0.7 MP, it must be posting and tiny picture to save space. Forget what I wrote above.

[Cantab]

This is why and where spot metering fails because it is not all of the bird that is overexposing, it is small areas that are the culprit. You can spot meter the bird and those areas will still be white blobs without detail. I have tried it. The only way I have found to assure no areas are clipped is to use the highlight screen on the LCD display and using the +/- EV control underexpose until the blinking stops and possibly for security go 1/3 stop under that. Then is post processing adjust to the correct exposure.

Joe, my recollection from other posts is that your preferred procedure for BIF is to set the shutter speed and aperture manually and then shoot with auto ISO, and make any necessary exposure adjustments by changing the exposure compensation so that you have no blinkies on the LCD display. Unfortunately for me, this is one area where Nikon cameras have the edge over Canon since with Canon there is no exposure compensation when shooting in manual mode with auto ISO.

This got me thinking about options for Canon owners. One long-standing trick when a gray card is not available is to take an exposure reading off green grass or other similar green vegetation. Fortuitously, green grass is much the same as an 18% neutral gray card.

Next time I'm shooting a bird with white (or black) feathers I'm going to try to be disciplined to take a probably spot meter reading off some nearby grass as long as it is in the same level of light as the subject of the photograph. I googled this and found at least one other person who agrees with me: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/51690502 . Finding green grass is a bit of a challenge at this time of the year in my area but many other types of green vegetation (not conifers) can serve the purpose.

This exposure reading can then be varied up or down depending on whether the feathers are white or black (or should this be black or white?). It seems to me that this would provide a good starting point for Canon photographers for an initial shot. If there's time, the blinkies can be checked; if not, hopefully you have an image that is somewhere in the ballpark.

Another option might be once the initial exposure has been identified to then take bracketed exposure shots (the scattergun approach to photography). I don't know how this works with Nikon cameras but with my Canon, if I set it to high-speed shooting and set the amount of exposure bracketing, the camera will take three photos in immediate succession when I press the shutter button once. I did a test this afternoon to see what adjustment the camera was making in order to change the exposure. It varied the shutter speed and left the aperture and ISO unchanged.

What does everyone think?

[Brownbear]

Hi Joe,

Thank you very much for taking the time to demonstrate an edit. This is very helpful to me as I didn't think it was over exposed but I can see that it was from the extra details you brought out, so the next time I have a gull shot I will try to do the same as you have done here. The sky is also very nice.

Yes, it is likely cropped just a bit to counter the center focusing. I can't remember this particular gull.

Thank you, Joe!

Hello Christina, I did a quick work up of one of the jpegs of your gulls. I lowered the exposure of the whole image, added a touch of Vibrance which made the blue more saturated. Then with the Adjustment Brush I worked on the bird alone, adding clarity and lowering the exposure slightly. Best I could do with a jpeg. I did notice however that the image was only 0.7 MP, that would seem to indicate that it is a very large crop because your camera has over 24 MP. Actually the detail is outstanding if it was such a large crop, imagine when you are posting images that are near full frame or full frame the quality you can achieve.



I think I just figured out the 0.7 MP, it must be posting and tiny picture to save space. Forget what I wrote above.

[Brownbear]

Hi Bruce,

I think metering off of other mid-tones in the area and setting your exposure from there is a great tactic that I know others use, and I have used too. I don't think it has to be green grass...It can be anything in the middle colour range, or at least that works for me. But it depends where the bird ends up flying.

The bracketing sounds too challenging to me as it is hard enough to capture a BIF... I don't think that the shutter speed changing for BIF is a good thing, but I don't know anything about this technique, so I'm looking forward to reading the replies.

Joe, my recollection from other posts is that your preferred procedure for BIF is to set the shutter speed and aperture manually and then shoot with auto ISO, and make any necessary exposure adjustments by changing the exposure compensation so that you have no blinkies on the LCD display. Unfortunately for me, this is one area where Nikon cameras have the edge over Canon since with Canon there is no exposure compensation when shooting in manual mode with auto ISO.

This got me thinking about options for Canon owners. One long-standing trick when a gray card is not available is to take an exposure reading off green grass or other similar green vegetation. Fortuitously, green grass is much the same as an 18% neutral gray card.

Next time I'm shooting a bird with white (or black) feathers I'm going to try to be disciplined to take a probably spot meter reading off some nearby grass as long as it is in the same level of light as the subject of the photograph. I googled this and found at least one other person who agrees with me: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/51690502 . Finding green grass is a bit of a challenge at this time of the year in my area but many other types of green vegetation (not conifers) can serve the purpose.

This exposure reading can then be varied up or down depending on whether the feathers are white or black (or should this be black or white?). It seems to me that this would provide a good starting point for Canon photographers for an initial shot. If there's time, the blinkies can be checked; if not, hopefully you have an image that is somewhere in the ballpark.

Another option might be once the initial exposure has been identified to then take bracketed exposure shots (the scattergun approach to photography). I don't know how this works with Nikon cameras but with my Canon, if I set it to high-speed shooting and set the amount of exposure bracketing, the camera will take three photos in immediate succession when I press the shutter button once. I did a test this afternoon to see what adjustment the camera was making in order to change the exposure. It varied the shutter speed and left the aperture and ISO unchanged.

What does everyone think?

[Cantab]

Hi Bruce,

I think metering off of other mid-tones in the area and setting your exposure from there is a great tactic that I know others use, and I have used too. I don't think it has to be green grass...It can be anything in the middle colour range, or at least that works for me. But it depends where the bird ends up flying.

After omitting this link from my earlier post, I've had another look at it and found it useful: http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/...s-zone-system/ .

It's a straight forward use of the zone system in scenes of high dynamic range (including a dalmatian dog). I've been doing some reading around the zone system and found this piece helpful. It makes your point that the neutral gray zone (5) can be a range of colours, not just green grass. Has Vancouver had any rain recently? We had some a few days ago but the grass won't green up till the wet coast earns it name in a few months.

[Brownbear]

Thank you for the link Bruce... I read this quite a while ago, but I am going to read it a few more times.. Very timely for me because right now I am trying to figure out metering and exposure for wildlife in all kinds of different lighting.

It hasn't rained in Vancouver in something like 45 days, which is very unusual and I believe we have set some kind of all time record. The grass is brown here, too. Of course it means I'm outside photographing things all of the time instead of working on my photos but there is no doubt that the rains will return.

Joe, I am going to try and replicate your edit and will post later. Thank you.

[Brownbear]

Hi Joe,

Here is my edit following your guidelines decreasing exposure, etc. I also lightened the shadow on the wing and I found it difficult (So I gave up) trying to decrease the exposure on the part of the body that meets the wing... I like your edit better, as mine seems over processed but it was a good learning exercise for me in bring out detail which I think I accomplished.



Thank you.

[jprzybyla]

Joe, my recollection from other posts is that your preferred procedure for BIF is to set the shutter speed and aperture manually and then shoot with auto ISO, and make any necessary exposure adjustments by changing the exposure compensation so that you have no blinkies on the LCD display. Unfortunately for me, this is one area where Nikon cameras have the edge over Canon since with Canon there is no exposure compensation when shooting in manual mode with auto ISO.

This got me thinking about options for Canon owners. One long-standing trick when a gray card is not available is to take an exposure reading off green grass or other similar green vegetation. Fortuitously, green grass is much the same as an 18% neutral gray card.

Next time I'm shooting a bird with white (or black) feathers I'm going to try to be disciplined to take a probably spot meter reading off some nearby grass as long as it is in the same level of light as the subject of the photograph. I googled this and found at least one other person who agrees with me: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/51690502 . Finding green grass is a bit of a challenge at this time of the year in my area but many other types of green vegetation (not conifers) can serve the purpose.

This exposure reading can then be varied up or down depending on whether the feathers are white or black (or should this be black or white?). It seems to me that this would provide a good starting point for Canon photographers for an initial shot. If there's time, the blinkies can be checked; if not, hopefully you have an image that is somewhere in the ballpark.

Another option might be once the initial exposure has been identified to then take bracketed exposure shots (the scattergun approach to photography). I don't know how this works with Nikon cameras but with my Canon, if I set it to high-speed shooting and set the amount of exposure bracketing, the camera will take three photos in immediate succession when I press the shutter button once. I did a test this afternoon to see what adjustment the camera was making in order to change the exposure. It varied the shutter speed and left the aperture and ISO unchanged.

What does everyone think?

Hello Bruce, I can only speak to what I do. I use Nikon's matrix metering for all of my bird photography. I also have the camera set to Auto White Balance and Auto ISO. I have the shutter speed set at a minimum of 1/500 and an aperture of f8. I like to keep things simple and concentrate on the bird rather than camera settings. The only setting I change is to use the +/- EV button to lower the exposure to -1EV if shooting a white bird or a bird with large white areas. For a black bird I would go the other way to +1EV. I do this to preserve the feather detail in the white and black feathers. I shoot RAW so from that initial image I do the rest in Lightroom. As Dan (NothernFocus) wrote in another thread I think of the camera as a data collector to give me data I can work with in Lightroom to develop an image.If the white balance is not what I want I fix it, if the exposure in not what I want I fix it. The things that cannot be fixed are a out of focus subject in an image, blown highlights or shadows, and a severely overexposed or underexposed image.

[jprzybyla]

Hi Joe,

Here is my edit following your guidelines decreasing exposure, etc. I also lightened the shadow on the wing and I found it difficult (So I gave up) trying to decrease the exposure on the part of the body that meets the wing... I like your edit better, as mine seems over processed but it was a good learning exercise for me in bring out detail which I think I accomplished.



Thank you.

Hello Christina, my first question is why do you want to lighten the shadow? Shadows are part of life, only when they block all detail do they become a problem. Open the shadows too much and out pops the noise the lurks in every shadow. If you do not want shadows find or shoot images without them. I am not sure how you shoot your birds in flight but I capture them using the CH (Continuous High) setting. The one caution I would extend using this mode is that the buffer can be filled quickly, so do not begin shooting until the bird is close. From the multiple images this captures I pick the best.

Regarding your edit... you can do better. Use the Adjustment Brush on just the bird, lower the exposure on the areas not showing detail and then for the whole bird add clarity of about +20. Clarity is another form of sharpening in Lightroom.