As I understand it UK NP was set as an alternative forum to the US based photographers and is in reality the European NP forum, it is the location of the photographers, not the subject matter. More exotica are certainly welcomed!
Your "oysterpip" looks a touch dark and flat on my screen and could perhaps benefit from a slight adjustment to the curves to raise the contrast and brightness.
Posted by Andy Astbury on April 10, 2007 at 5:04 AM
Hi John - great comp and would have been a super shot if you could have got the exposure nailed.
Black and white birds are mega hard to photograph, and imho somewhat harder with digital than film, but suffice to say, I know with my D200 if theres more than 4.5 stops between darkest dark and brightest highlight then some part of the subject will be incorrectly exposed.
This is where an SB800 with a Better Beamer might well have come in real handy - you could have thrown some extra light on the bird as a fill light and got some detail in the blacks around the head and neck area.
You could also have taken the shot at f8 or f11 using iso100 without any loss of DoF - D200's suffer from diffraction limiting and this can start to show itself between f11 and f16.
But the comp is great and it's really nice that you got him calling too
Best Regards
Andy
Posted by Mark sellings on April 10, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Hi John,
Like the comp and the pose, just maybe a bit darker than I would like it but appreciate that is probably what the light was like at the time.
Love the comp and BG. Technically I'll go along with Andy's comments....whatever they were I really should get more technical then I'd understand it all a bit better
Posted by John Arthur on April 11, 2007 at 2:13 AM
I have taken on board the various suggestions and tried to tweak using curves, brought out a bit more detail in the bird but I think the background now looks worse. Still, it was a beautiful day, and I was on Iceland so who'se complaining.
Cheers
John
Posted by Andy Astbury on April 11, 2007 at 4:26 AM
John - you've tweeked the whole image, try again but use the magic wand tool or lasso tool in CS2 to select the black areas on the bird only, then try a curves tweek or levels adjust.
You can redo this operation as many times as you like and if theres any detail in the blacks you should be able to bring them out a bit.
Discussion
7 repliesQuestion for the forum: does the 'UK' in the forum name refer to the location of the photos or is it OK to post photos taken whilst abroad?
D200; Nikkor 70-300mm F4/5.6 @300mm; 1/800-f13; iso400; handheld.
Cheers
John
Best wishes
Phil
Your "oysterpip" looks a touch dark and flat on my screen and could perhaps benefit from a slight adjustment to the curves to raise the contrast and brightness.
Black and white birds are mega hard to photograph, and imho somewhat harder with digital than film, but suffice to say, I know with my D200 if theres more than 4.5 stops between darkest dark and brightest highlight then some part of the subject will be incorrectly exposed.
This is where an SB800 with a Better Beamer might well have come in real handy - you could have thrown some extra light on the bird as a fill light and got some detail in the blacks around the head and neck area.
You could also have taken the shot at f8 or f11 using iso100 without any loss of DoF - D200's suffer from diffraction limiting and this can start to show itself between f11 and f16.
But the comp is great and it's really nice that you got him calling too
Best Regards
Andy
Like the comp and the pose, just maybe a bit darker than I would like it but appreciate that is probably what the light was like at the time.
Mark
Cheers
John
You can redo this operation as many times as you like and if theres any detail in the blacks you should be able to bring them out a bit.
Regards
Andy