Perching

Davesumner (e2 Member)

6

13 Jan 2013 - 11:36 PM

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Hi louise,

Great try but I feel you were a bit up against it with the light looking at the birds overexposed white breast and the dark background. I think the culprit here is the multi segment metering which has probably looked at the background and set the exposure accordingly which ultimately lead to the white breast being overexposed because the camera could not capture the entire tonal range in this scene. With shots like this you have to take the circumstances as they are because you can't change the background easily and you certainly can't ask the bird to move. With this in mind I always have my camera set to spot metering and I only use the centre point to focus. The technique I use is as follows and this is especially relevant for seabirds:

When I see a subject, I can't always select my background, lighting circumstances or the amount of time the subject will remain in position, I therefore have to grab the iniatial shot or two as quickly as possible and then try and improve it the situation allows for it. With a shot like yours the first thing I would do is fire off a couple of shots, the main priority being focus. If after the initial shots, the subject still remains I will then look for anything that is white or bright in the scene especially white feathers, I then spot meter on that area and use exposure lock to keep that exposure. I then recompose and take more shots which are probably going to be a better exposure for the highlights than the first two. You have to remember that the background isn't really of any relevance at this point and is probably going to be out of focus anyway so exposure and sharpness of the subject are the main priorities. Usually and especially if the light is bright, the rest of the image will be a little underexposed but that is okay because we can usually lighten this in post production but if we overexpose any part of the image we normally cannot get anything back in those areas because there is no detail left in overexposed areas.

Also with your composition, it is definately better to have the subject on a third with the wider part of the image for it to look into. Unfortunately, even though this bird is actually looking at you sideways, as humans we just naturally assume the the position the head is facing is the way the bird is looking.

I did a quick mod where I added space on the left, adjusted levels and sharpened to show you what I meant.

I'm happy to explain in more detail in a PM if you need it.


I hope this helps

Constructive Critique!