Light and Shadow, More Birds

[NorthernFocus]

My absolute favorite technique is to use lighting to isolate the subject. Of course with wildlife it's not always possible. But we try...

Recommend viewing in the lightbox.

1) Shot early morning while the opposite bank of the river was still in shadow.



2) Shot 150 miles away in evening of the same day. The background was shaded area under trees.

[Shadowman]

Nice set.

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks, John.

[NorthernFocus]

Here's another from the same morning. In this situation the isolation is achieved simply by exposing for the white birds. There is so much DR between the brightly lit bird and the BG in shadow that the BG effectively disappears. Enhanced even further in post by lowering the black point to the left edge of the histogram.

[tbob]

Worked out brilliantly. I have never tried birds in flight so the technical aspects escape me, despite my naivete I can tell a great shot when I see one. Isolation is really well done and does the subject proud.

[Geoff F]

Birds in flight are certainly a tricky subject and having a white bird against a dark background makes them doubly difficult to retain this amount of feather detail.

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

....having a white bird against a dark background makes them doubly difficult to retain this amount of feather detail.

White birds are a challenge in general. The BG is neither here nor there if you expose for the bird. And use manual exposure. In this case I simply used "sunny 16" settings. Shooting in auto with spot metering could also work but even the variability with shadowed portions of the bird as the wings flap can cause wide variation in the meter reading.

[rpcrowe]

Just lovely, all of them!

[billtils]

Superb, nothing else to be said.

[Wavelength]

Yes, silent admirations only

[GrahamS]

Bravo! Dan.

[Dave A]

Wonderful shots.

Dave

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Glad you enjoyed the photos. Hopefully I'll get a chance to make another visit or two to the same location in the coming weeks.

[pnodrog]

Excellent shots and detail in highlights well retained. I was going to ask if you used spot metering or exposure compensation but I read you used the "sunny 16" rule. I sometimes miss not having my lost Weston Master with incident metering.