Dark Birds over Water - Matrix or Spot Metering

[Brownbear]

Hi Chauncey,

Thank you for sharing. I guess I tried a levels layer to darken the water, only because I just learned how to do this last week and I would like the water in my bird photos to look nicer. I know that I can use the adjustment brush in LR to darken the water but for some reason it never looks natural when I try this. Moving the black point in Levels in Elements 9 looked more natural to me... Anyway obviously it is another thing I need to learn more about.

Thank you for letting me know the Cormorant is too, dark.

Here it is again, adjusted in LR. In the first image I increased the exposure by .36 and in the 2nd image I increased the exposure by .24, adjusted the whites and the blacks as far as they would go. In the darker image with nicer water I pulled down the the top of the curve a little, and in the lighter image I pulled up the bottom of the curve a little.

I also selectively sharpened both birds by 25 and increased clarity by 29





I think the darker water looks better... What do you think?

Thank you.

Christina, none of those images are sufficiently out of exposure to even warrant leaving LR by playing with the highlights and/or shadows...not enough, then use the adjustment brush to tweak them further.

Having said that, there is nothing wrong with the layer approach. The bird is too dark in the last one though.

[chauncey]

Our workflows differ in that I generally know that I'll go into CS6...armed with that knowledge I'll do this>
sharpen, profiles, clarity, WB, shadows, highlights, and rarely, the adjustment brush.
In CS6>I'm a believer in using faux HDR, doing so in a subtle manner and, oftentimes taking a selection and moving it into a non-HDR background from the same image.
Additionally, I will not hesitate to process the background and the selection differently.

PS your images, I would probably have only used shadows and highlights.
There is no right or wrong, only different.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Chauncey,

Very helpful. I will play with shadows and highlights and see what happens.

Our workflows differ in that I generally know that I'll go into CS6...armed with that knowledge I'll do this>
sharpen, profiles, clarity, WB, shadows, highlights, and rarely, the adjustment brush.
In CS6>I'm a believer in using faux HDR, doing so in a subtle manner and, oftentimes taking a selection and moving it into a non-HDR background from the same image.
Additionally, I will not hesitate to process the background and the selection differently.

PS your images, I would probably have only used shadows and highlights.
There is no right or wrong, only different.

[Dusty]

I'm troubled by everyone who is telling Cristina to use matrix/evaluative to meter for the dark bird. I think whatever the colour of the bird the meter in the camera will get it wrong. It will, if it's on matrix, meter for the whole scene, but if the camera is on spot/centre weighted or even partial metering you can adjust the ISO or shutter speed to get the correct exposure of the bird and do some PP on the image. I'm I right or wrong. This image (not a good one)was taken with spot metering

[Stagecoach]

I have been following this thread with interest, although not participating to date as I do not take pictures of birds generally but wish to gain knowledge in all areas.

It appears we have covered from dark birds over water to multi coloured birds in flight and different methods of nailing the exposure for these subjects.

Recently I took an image of a flying plane (BBIF) with an extremely bright sky behind it of which I used spot metering and achieved what I consider fully acceptable exposure with very minor tweaking in PP. Out of interest from following this discussion I looked at the 'focus point' in ViewNX which coincides with the metering area in this mode. The area consisted of sections of black, grey and off white. A small movement (and remember I'm panning) of the focus/metering point would have drastically changed the metering selection between predominately bright sky, predominately white fuselage to predominately black paint job in shade. This would be the same scenario no doubt for Dave's BIF above, in reality you may nail it or you may not.

So, what's my conclusion from this thread so far ?

Going back to Christina's original post 'Dark Birds over Water - Matrix or Spot Metering', the answer as to which to use will depend very much upon;

a) what's within the area of which your meter mode is covering
b) the speed of movement of the bird on the water and its affect on your ability to maintain consistent lighting ratio within the metered area
c) the change/variance in lighting due to to the birds movement in relation to the light source and its affect on end result due to any set exposure bias you have dialled in.

Grahame

[Colin Southern]

I think whatever the colour of the bird the meter in the camera will get it wrong.It will, if it's on matrix, meter for the whole scene, but if the camera is on spot/centre weighted or even partial metering you can adjust the ISO or shutter speed to get the correct exposure of the bird and do some PP on the image. I'm I right or wrong. This image (not a good one)was taken with spot metering

If the camera is metering the whole scene - and the bird is part of that scene - then the scene and the bird will be exposed correctly. It may or may not result in an image that's pleasing, but it will be exposed correctly none-the-less (after all, the bird is just another reflective object in the scene).

With spot metering, ONLY the portion under the spot is taken into consideration; yes, it can be biased to shift the tones to conceal or reveal more detail, but only at the at the expense of the entire scene, as your example shows by way of the over-exposed sky and clouds.

At the end of the day, it's not an exposure issue - it's a "dynamic range limitation of our monitors and printers" issue; if the highlights are exposed correctly then the shadows don't reveal enough detail with a dark subject. Best solution is to expose the entire scene correctly, and then compress the dynamic range so that the shadow detail is raised to the point where it can be seen on our screens and in our prints.