Blue winged teal and RW black bird

[Blackburnian]

Bonjours,

This Teal was nice enough to flash it's trade mark Blue mirror and this common but difficult bird to properly expose was shot with a mid tone as back ground wich didn't blow my meter.

I've been having difficulties shooting birds that are almost all black. Can't seem to properly expose for detail in the feathers.

What have you all been doing to capture detail from black birds??

MArc

[Scottes]

Love the low angle on the duck. Simply wonderful.


The RWB is very tough, no doubt, as are crows and such. The best thing I've found is to get them in the right environment - a lot of low side light with a dark background. Excessive light will allow you to expose all the black, and a low side-light will allow for details in the black. Then you just have to be careful not to blow out the yellow wingbars.

Easier said than done, but it can be done.


Photoshop's Shadow/Highlights can do wonders for black birds to bring out some details, but it's very tough to bring back the yellow (unless you cheat). So exposing for the yellow is the goal, but it's tough since it's so small of an area.... Bracketing can be a blessing.

I'd guess you were about 1/3-1/2 stop overexposed here - just enough to blow the yellow wingbars out to white. Yet you still have a lot of detail in the black, so you probably could have stopped down and still gotten sufficient detail.

That all said, this is still a very good shot. This is not an easy bird and one of the reasons it's one of my favorites (and the call it makes). Luckily I have an NWR nearby which is covered with RWBs so I've had hundreds opportunities to shoot them, thus allowing me a dozen nice shots or so.

[Blackburnian]

Hi Scottes,

Thks for the info. I'm new to this field (birder first) so I usualy select AV or AP and do some partial metering when i think it needs it. From what I remember i had the cam set to AP 7.1 and it gave me a shutter speed of approx 1/500 (need to verify my EXIF).

So by saying it was overexposed 1/3-1/2 you mean I could of used an aperture of 8.0?? Or a faster shutter speed?

I've orderd the book..."The Confused Photographer's Guide to On-Camera Spotmetering " and
"The Confused Photographer's Guide to Photographic Exposure and the Simplified Zone System"

I'm a little confused about mid tones and how the partial meter works.

So, I'm doing lot's of reading and exploring (self teaching that is...)

Do you shoot in Manual mode all the time??

Marc

[Scottes]

So by saying it was overexposed 1/3-1/2 you mean I could of used an aperture of 8.0?? Or a faster shutter speed?
Yes, one or the other. On a 10D or 20D you can adjust the EC (Exposure Compensation) and still stay otherwise automatic. Thus in Av mode the camera would have increased the shutter speed accordingly.

I'm a little confused about mid tones and how the partial meter works.
And a black bird with bright yellow highlights isn't going to make that any easier! This bird generally surpasses what the camera can capture. If you get the yellow correct then you'll find that you've lost some detail in the darkest blacks. In a nutshell, this bird isn't easy. There are easier ways to start into bird photography. :-)

Edit: To be clearer, the very small point of yellow will barely register on the meter. The meter will only measure the bird. So you've got to remember to remember the yellow and adjust manually.

Also, partial metering is really only good if the subject fills the partial meter zone. If the bird's smaller than the zone then a bright background will fool the meter since it averages the entire zone. This also makes it tricky. I almost always use evaluative mode and adjust mentally for the background brightness compared to the bird and then adjust this for the amount of the bird that fills the viewfinder.

It also helps to take a shot, then chimp the histogram, then adjust for the next shot. Or bracket and analyze & compare the images when you get home. Chimping the histogram is much, much faster and is also a better bet since you'll be in the same lighting/background conditions.

Do you shoot in Manual mode all the time??
Never. With birds it's almost always Av mode and I adjust EC.

[zach]

I love the shot of the BWT! Shouldn't be but a few months before they start migrating south.

[tupe]

The teal shot is beautiful! Nice pics!

[LazyPhotographer]

These are good... any RWBB shot where you can see feathers is an accomplishment!