Egret at Bolsa Chica Wetlands

[wackii]

A few shots of White Egret today. Thanks JacaRanda for the location. I got there kinda late today (5:30 PM). I only have one hour or so there. I came back with a few shots. C&C are welcome. Any tips with post processing? I'm not good at it. Thanks.
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Al,

 

[Parker219]

In the first shot, the water color looks really un-natural to me. Did you push the blue slider a little too far? =-)

The bird also looks a little under-exposed, but maybe you can pop the whites a little bit or mess around with the brightness. It isnt too bad, that I dont think it couldnt be fixed.

Just my opinions, lets see what some others say.

 

[wackii]

Thanks Parker. I didn't mess around w/ the color. It comes out like that through my camera. I think I need to calibrate my laptop as it looks normal and not under expose on my screen.

 

[Parker219]

So, this doesnt look any better or your monitor?

Edit-

Original-View attachment 38451

 

[wackii]

It looks better. Let me recalibrate my screen (I think my nephew changed my setting). Thanks.

 

[Parker219]

No problem. Very nice set by the way. I love action shots like these!

 

[JacaRanda]

You are welcome Wackii, glad you made it down. We actually just left around the time you arrived.

I agree with Parker219 that the photos look a bit underexposed. Looks like you ran out of daylight which would make it pretty tough.

Hopefully next time, we can coordinate and do some serious walking around the wetlands. I was really jealous today because we must have seen at least 7 people walking around with 500mm lenses. I will post a few shots I got today.

 

[wackii]

I've just fix up my laptop settings. I hope this turns out better. I crank up the exposure a bit and brighten up the shadow.

Edit: I also changed the white balance to daylight which add a lil yellow/orange to the picture, kinda matched what I saw at the time I shot these...

JacaRanda, I was busy this weekend and couldn't make it there any earlier. Today I got there to see how it's like kinda day. I saw two guys with the 500mm prime lens make my lens looks tiny. I don't have that kind of money but would love to have one. My telephoto lens is a 500mm also but it's a Sigma 50-500mm OS version. So far, I like it. It's not too heavy to carry and I handheld all my shots. I don't have a heavy duty tripod yet (looking to buy one soon) so I rather handheld than use my small tripod.

Here is the edit version.
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[WesternGuy]

wackii, nice shots of a Snowy Egret. That they seem a little underexposed is a problem that we run up against when photographing a white bird on a darker background. Your old in-camera meter wants to try and make everything 18% grey, so the image ends up being underexposed. If you try these again, or something similar, then you might want to try using a -1/2 or -1/3 exposure compensation (EC), even maybe up to -2/3 compensation to allow for this significant contrast between the bird and the darker water. You might have to experiment a bit, because the actual EC will depend on the exact lighting conditions. The edited versions are much better.

 

[JacaRanda]

The edits loo much better. I really like #3!

 

[wackii]

wackii, nice shots of a Snowy Egret. That they seem a little underexposed is a problem that we run up against when photographing a white bird on a darker background. Your old in-camera meter wants to try and make everything 18% grey, so the image ends up being underexposed. If you try these again, or something similar, then you might want to try using a -1/2 or -1/3 exposure compensation (EC), even maybe up to -2/3 compensation to allow for this significant contrast between the bird and the darker water. You might have to experiment a bit, because the actual EC will depend on the exact lighting conditions. The edited versions are much better.

Westernguy, thank you for the tip. I did use +1/3 EC cuz' I thought that the background is dark so I want to brighten that up a little by adding EC. Am I wrong? Now I realized that by adding +1/3 EC, I might over exposure the Egret (white). But if I use -1/3 or -2/3 EC, my background will be so dark. I'm a little lost on this.

 

[shelby16]

I agree, the edits look a lot better. Very nice!

 

[cgipson1]

Wackii... if you metered on the Egrets, you could have probably gone a 1/2 to a full stop of + EC (your Exif states you were spot metering).

I still find your edits a little underexposed. Laptops are hard to work with.. as any change in the display angle really changes what you will see.

I did a edit (just brightness) on my calibrated IPS panel... should be close. Did a curves adjustment with the white dropper on the brightest part of the bird...

Your edit is on top.. mine is on bottom

 

[shelby16]

Wackii... if you metered on the Egrets, you could have probably gone a 1/2 to a full stop of + EC (your Exif state you were spot metering).

I still find your edits a little underexposed. Laptops are hard to work with.. as any change in the display angle really changes what you will see.

I did a edit (just brightness) on my calibrated IPS panel... should be close. Did a curves adjustment with the white dropper on the brightest part of the bird...

Your edit is on top.. mine is on bottom

View attachment 38564
View attachment 38565

^^ oh, I love this.

 

[JacaRanda]

Wackii... if you metered on the Egrets, you could have probably gone a 1/2 to a full stop of + EC (your Exif states you were spot metering).

I still find your edits a little underexposed. Laptops are hard to work with.. as any change in the display angle really changes what you will see.

I did a edit (just brightness) on my calibrated IPS panel... should be close. Did a curves adjustment with the white dropper on the brightest part of the bird...

Your edit is on top.. mine is on bottom

View attachment 38564
View attachment 38565

Wow, a huge difference. Thanks Charlie for adding in the 1/2 to full stop +EC. It had me a little confused also.