Bird Photography

[kodiaksalmon 0]

Yeah, I was going to lighten it up, but I've taken about 500 in the past few days so I've not had time to touch it up, and I just wanted to get it up an posted. Took 110 shots of the eclipse the other night. I might start an "Moon" thread tonight when I get home...

 

Jeff

[Graham 0]

 

[Guest]

A bleu haring I took a couple pictures of today. Man I wish these shots didn't look so bleached out.

 

 

 

Jim

[Frogfish 0]

You know, I would of taken the risk and tried to get a long exposure with that heron...1-2 seconds. The milky water+the heron would be an amazing shot!

[Will Milne 0]

Hi Jim- nice heron:)

 

hope you don't mind I took the liberty of playing with the pics a little to try and get around the bleached look-

 

levels- to get a full black and white

color correction- to negatate the blue cast

a little dodge and burn to pull out some of the body detail

 

 

hope that helps

 

Will

[Guest]

Hi Frogfish now if I go with a longer exposure that would mean I would be setting the exposure correct? Right now it is on Auto because I have a hard time telling what is in focus and what isn't. If that is correct. Then I wonder what/if I could use the autofocus and get things in focus then switch the exposre ring to different exposures and then the picture should still be in focus. Of course assuming nothing moved. I know the auto focus is limiting my abilities but if your eyes don't focus right then it is kinda hard to get around not using the auto focus. I also think I had the ISO set to Auto.

 

Thanks Will there isn't a problem with you playing with my photos I post here. That did come out looking better but it still looks Blaw to me. I even had the evening shadows/sun working with me on this. I'll have to find that haring and given him a buck or two and see if he will stand there somemore for me. lol

 

Thanks everyone and if anyone else has comments please post them.

Thanks

Jim

[Isonychia 0]

Jim,

 

The reason your heron came out underexposed was because of the white water in the background. The white fooled your autofocus, auto-aperture camera into thinking the entire image was predominantly white. When the camera stopped down to compensate, it rendered the heron too dark.

 

If you'd used a manual setting and taken a spot-meter reading on the bird, you'd probably have gotten a better-exposed image. Ditto if you'd metered on the water and opened the aperture about 1.5 to 2 stops.

 

Bryan Peterson wrote a terrific book on getting good exposures in tricky conditions. It's called Understanding Exposure, and it's available from Amazon.com for about 20 bucks, shipping included. I keep my copy handy for reference.

 

John

[Guest]

Hi John, thanks for the info. When I go home tonight I am going to see if I can use the auto focus but then switch to the manual aperture. I have never used or seen a light meter. I might have to get one of those and start using it.

 

Thanks

Jim

[kodiaksalmon 0]

Jim, unless your camera is 30 years old, it should have a capable light meter in it. It's what's determining your exposure. The way I understand it, is that a hand-held meter will tell you the same thing your camera does.

 

And at least on my camera (Sony A100) I can mess with exposure, ss, ISO and all that, and still use AF if need be, after I've manually set them. Focus is independent of exposure (unless we're talking about depth of focus) I prefer not to use it, but even at 29, my eyes aint' what they used to be, so it gets used often enough.

 

I am far, far, far from an expert, but you should be able to set your exposure, ss, etc, then use AF afterword as well.

 

Jeff

[Graham 0]

Your focus looks good to me, the herons eye is sharp. If you change from auto mode to aperture priority mode you can open up or close down the lens, which will affect both shutter speed and depth of field. I think your photo looks nice and you would have needed at least half a second shutter speed to smooth out the water, by stopping down, which would mean a tripod was necessary to keep the bird sharp.

[Guest]

I just broke out the manual and it looks like my camera has 3 metering types. One is spot metering and my camera isn't set to that right now. SO!!! when I get home I will get it set to that and go play somemore. Hopefully I won't need to mow the yard. Mine has two settings it looks like one is TV and the other is AV. One is to manually set the apeture and the other is to manually set the ss. Then if I put it into manual (I think) I can set both the Apeture and SS.

 

Thanks

Jim

[Frogfish 0]

Graham answered the question!

 

Use a tripod, and pray that the heron won't move!

 

 

[Graham 0]

Here's your heron jbrowning... A nice looking bird... I think my version looks fake, but I had fun playing with it, took about seven minutes to do. When I erased around the bird I should have used a softer edged brush, likely would have looked more realistic.

 

[Guest]

Now that looks great Graham. I need to work some more on my photoshop.

 

Jim

[Graham 0]

Thanks Jim, I'm glad you like it.

 

The Photoshoping was fairly easy but the fun part was scrolling through some of the hundreds of shots I took earlier this summer in the Adirondack's, and trying to imagine your heron in the shot. The background I used, would be filled with one boot, a pretty small piece of water. But I think your heron fits in nicely.

 

Graham