Eagle portrait

[beagle100]

bald eagle currently in rehab !

(60D with orig 100-400)

 

[WesternGuy]

This is not a bad shot. It looks like your meter was fooled by the white head feathers and underexposed the brown ones. I am not sure what you have for post-processing software, but you might want to brush some detail and lighten up the body feathers if that is possible.

There is a posting in here by John Hunt that you might want to check out to see what I mean by detail in the body feathers.

WesternGuy

 

[beagle100]

This is not a bad shot. It looks like your meter was fooled by the white head feathers and underexposed the brown ones. I am not sure what you have for post-processing software, but you might want to brush some detail and lighten up the body feathers if that is possible.

There is a posting in here by John Hunt that you might want to check out to see what I mean by detail in the body feathers.

WesternGuy

Thx
not familiar with "John Hunt", does he also use a 60D? maybe those white feathers were dirty !
or it could be under exposed

here are two pics taken the next day with white feathers, same lens, same meter

400mm cropped

.

or maybe I need to upgrade my 25 year old lens !

 

[Peeb]

bald eagle currently in rehab !

(60D with orig 100-400)

Wow- you got pretty close!

 

[beagle100]

bald eagle currently in rehab !


(60D with orig 100-400)

Wow- you got pretty close!

yes, but the pic was considerably cropped
(and the eagle was caged!)

 

[WesternGuy]

This is not a bad shot. It looks like your meter was fooled by the white head feathers and underexposed the brown ones. I am not sure what you have for post-processing software, but you might want to brush some detail and lighten up the body feathers if that is possible.

There is a posting in here by John Hunt that you might want to check out to see what I mean by detail in the body feathers.

WesternGuy

Thx
not familiar with "John Hunt", does he also use a 60D? maybe those white feathers were dirty !
or it could be under exposed

here are two pics taken the next day with white feathers, same lens, same meter

400mm cropped (images removed to shorten response)

or maybe I need to upgrade my 25 year old lens !

The posting by John Hunt that I referred to can be found here - Eagle Portrait .

I guess I failed to make my point, sorry about that. It is not the "white" head feathers I am referring to, or am worried about, but rather the "brown" body feathers. There is nothing wrong with the white feathers as is shown by your images of the "white" birds - nice images by the way. The "brown" feathers of the eagle's body is lacking in detail. The camera that anyone uses in these situation is not, IMHO, really relevant. What is relevant is how the camera's meter reads the image that it is photographing. Most cameras might react in a similar fashion - don't know without testing, but you have run into a situation that a lot of us who photograph birds run into, particularly with the eagles. If you focus on the head, then the camera's meter will set it self up for the white head feathers and underexpose the darker body feathers. If you shoot raw, then the detail is probably there and can be brought out in post processing by selectively choosing the brown feathers and bringing up the detail. Without knowing what software you use to process the image, then I cannot advise you as to the specific things to try. In Lightroom, for example, I would use the Adjustment Brush to mask off the darker feathers and then increase the exposure just enough to bring up any detail that is there.

This type of "problem" will occur anywhere you photograph an image with a very large dynamic range. For example, I ran into a similar problem at Bosque last fall photographing white Snow and Ross' geese against a dark cloudy background. Exposing for the geese almost always underexposed the dark clouds, making them look more ominous than they really were.

Upgrading the older 100-400 to the new Mark II would be a great solution if you can afford it. I have the original 100-400 and it is still a great lens, but the detail of the new version will blow your mind. It also goes very well with the 1.4x III extender. I shot just about all my imagery at Bosque with that combination and the results were great.

Hope this helps.

WesternGuy

 

[John Hunt]

This is a nice shot but I agree a little detail in the body would be good.

This is not a bad shot. It looks like your meter was fooled by the white head feathers and underexposed the brown ones. I am not sure what you have for post-processing software, but you might want to brush some detail and lighten up the body feathers if that is possible.

There is a posting in here by John Hunt that you might want to check out to see what I mean by detail in the body feathers.

WesternGuy

I'm flattered.

 

[JacaRanda]

This is not a bad shot. It looks like your meter was fooled by the white head feathers and underexposed the brown ones. I am not sure what you have for post-processing software, but you might want to brush some detail and lighten up the body feathers if that is possible.

There is a posting in here by John Hunt that you might want to check out to see what I mean by detail in the body feathers.

WesternGuy

Thx
not familiar with "John Hunt", does he also use a 60D? maybe those white feathers were dirty !
or it could be under exposed

here are two pics taken the next day with white feathers, same lens, same meter

400mm cropped (images removed to shorten response)

or maybe I need to upgrade my 25 year old lens !

The posting by John Hunt that I referred to can be found here - Eagle Portrait .

I guess I failed to make my point, sorry about that. It is not the "white" head feathers I am referring to, or am worried about, but rather the "brown" body feathers. There is nothing wrong with the white feathers as is shown by your images of the "white" birds - nice images by the way. The "brown" feathers of the eagle's body is lacking in detail. The camera that anyone uses in these situation is not, IMHO, really relevant. What is relevant is how the camera's meter reads the image that it is photographing. Most cameras might react in a similar fashion - don't know without testing, but you have run into a situation that a lot of us who photograph birds run into, particularly with the eagles. If you focus on the head, then the camera's meter will set it self up for the white head feathers and underexpose the darker body feathers. If you shoot raw, then the detail is probably there and can be brought out in post processing by selectively choosing the brown feathers and bringing up the detail. Without knowing what software you use to process the image, then I cannot advise you as to the specific things to try. In Lightroom, for example, I would use the Adjustment Brush to mask off the darker feathers and then increase the exposure just enough to bring up any detail that is there.

This type of "problem" will occur anywhere you photograph an image with a very large dynamic range. For example, I ran into a similar problem at Bosque last fall photographing white Snow and Ross' geese against a dark cloudy background. Exposing for the geese almost always underexposed the dark clouds, making them look more ominous than they really were.

Upgrading the older 100-400 to the new Mark II would be a great solution if you can afford it. I have the original 100-400 and it is still a great lens, but the detail of the new version will blow your mind. It also goes very well with the 1.4x III extender. I shot just about all my imagery at Bosque with that combination and the results were great.

Hope this helps.

WesternGuy

I tried to let some folks on a previous TPF post know how great and popular the newer version II of the 100-400 is. It's possible that lens is the one I see most often already in the most frequented two locations near me for birdography.

 

[nf1]

Great shots, not just the eagle but the egret and the ibis as well!

 

[JacaRanda]

Very nice Beagle!

 

[LarryLomona]

I agree with nfl

 

[beagle100]

This is not a bad shot. It looks like your meter was fooled by the white head feathers and underexposed the brown ones. I am not sure what you have for post-processing software, but you might want to brush some detail and lighten up the body feathers if that is possible.

There is a posting in here by John Hunt that you might want to check out to see what I mean by detail in the body feathers.

WesternGuy

Thx
not familiar with "John Hunt", does he also use a 60D? maybe those white feathers were dirty !
or it could be under exposed

here are two pics taken the next day with white feathers, same lens, same meter

400mm cropped (images removed to shorten response)

or maybe I need to upgrade my 25 year old lens !

The posting by John Hunt that I referred to can be found here - Eagle Portrait .

I guess I failed to make my point, sorry about that. It is not the "white" head feathers I am referring to, or am wexample, I ran into a similar problem at Bosque last fall photographing white Snow and Ross' geese against a dark cloudy background. Exposing for the geese almost always underexposed the dark clouds, making them look more ominous than they really were.

Upgrading the older 100-400 to the new Mark II would be a great solution if you can afford it. I have the original 100-400 and it is still a great lens, but the detail of the new version will blow your mind. It also goes very well with the 1.4x III extender. I shot just about all my imagery at Bosque with that combination and the results were great.

Hope this helps.

WesternGuy

well, that pic was severely cropped and that injured eagle was in a an enclosure, maybe the meter was fooled or maybe not

But I don't want to spend thousands and thousands buying new camera gear !

I spent a morning at Merritt Island NWR in Florida two weeks ago and got over 800 pics with a $300 camera, the feathers on the birds seem reasonable

maybe it's all an illusion

 

[WesternGuy]

I guess I am still having trouble making my point. My original "suggestion/comment" has absolutely nothing to do with cropping the image, the lens you use, or the camera you use, rather it relates to the way the meter on the camera interprets the scene that you are pointing the camera at and the resultant image that you capture. You do not have to spend thousands and thousands buying new camera gear. The gear you have is more than sufficient to capture great images as you have done with the egret, ibises and spoonbill that you have posted. I really like the ibis in flight.

In the eagle image that you have, cropped or not, my point was that the "brown feathers" are lacking in detail. I tried to explain why, but let's not even worry about that now. As I said in a previous posting, if you shot your images in raw, then you can recover the detail by selectively processing the brown feathers. In Lightroom, this can be done with the Adjustment Brush; in Photoshop it can be done with an adjustment layer and masking. In one of the newer packages such as On 1 Photo 10, it can be done with a layer and masking.

In the last images that you posted of the Ibis in flight and the Spoonbill, you are dealing with birds that are very much the same or similar in colour through out all their plumage. Yes, I see that the Ibis has a few black feathers on its wingtips, but they do not fill enough of the captured image to affect the resulting which is, of course, determined by the camera's meter and its settings, whereas the brown feathers in the eagle portrait do affect the resultant image. These variations in exposure can be corrected by selective post-processing.

If I haven't made my point by now, then I surrender.

WesternGuy

 

[beagle100]

I guess I am still having trouble making my point. My original "suggestion/comment" has absolutely nothing to do with cropping the image, the lens you use, or the camera you use, rather it relates to the way the meter on the camera interprets the scene that you are pointing the camera at and the resultant image that you capture. You do not have to spend thousands and thousands buying new camera gear. The gear you have is more than sufficient to capture great images as you have done with the egret, ibises and spoonbill that you have posted. I really like the ibis in flight.

In the eagle image that you have, cropped or not, my point was that the "brown feathers" are lacking in detail. I tried to explain why, but let's not even worry about that now. As I said in a previous posting, if you shot your images in raw, then you can recover the detail by selectively processing the brown feathers. In Lightroom, this can be done with the Adjustment Brush; in Photoshop it can be done with an adjustment layer and masking. In one of the newer packages such as On 1 Photo 10, it can be done with a layer and masking.

In the last images that you posted of the Ibis in flight and the Spoonbill, you are dealing with birds that are very much the same or similar in colour through out all their plumage. Yes, I see that the Ibis has a few black feathers on its wingtips, but they do not fill enough of the captured image to affect the resulting which is, of course, determined by the camera's meter and its settings, whereas the brown feathers in the eagle portrait do affect the resultant image. These variations in exposure can be corrected by selective post-processing.

If I haven't made my point by now, then I surrender.

WesternGuy

Ok, I accept your surrender.
Or maybe I just don't like to do a lot of post processing!