I am an obsessed amatuer photographer who needs help. I love Great White Egrets but have trouble capturing detail and definition when the sun is strong. Is there something I can do to reduce the blowout problem on teh whites? I shoot apeture priority in raw and keep my exposure around F 12 or less. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I attached a picture that was probably the best one and it still seems like the whites are blown out. I use a Nikon D 5000 with a 70-300 vr lens.
That's a difficult combination: a white bird in strong light. Shooting mode has nothing to do with how the whites look, but using aperture preferred auto is my standard way.
What you really need to do is be aware of the quality of the light as function of the time of day and avoid the harsh light that you'll encounter over most of the day. Experienced photographers know they need to be out as close to sunrise as possible and avoid such subjects for most of the rest of the day. Working with soft light at morning and evening, or on days with light overcast, will help tremendously.
You also need to know how your camera meter responds to light subjects. There are books full of charts for Canon shooters that tell them how much to compensate from the meter reading as a function of the size and tone of the subject against various types of backgrounds. For Nikon shooters - we tend to trust our accurate meters and make smaller compensations based on experience.
Shooting raw is definitely the better way to go with such subjects. Use the sliders in ACR to fine tune the histogram at the time of raw conversion: you want to keep the curve as far to the right as you can without the highlights blowing out (be sure to have the clipping indicators turned on during raw conversion.
Another thing to make sure of is that you have the Auto setting turned off in ACR - if the auto setting is on then ACR will make a mess of your exposure settings and it will do something different with every situation and you'll never get a feel for what you are doing correctly or incorrectly.
Basically, the whites are blown because the shot is overexposed for that particular part of the scene (although the camera thinks it's properly exposing for the whole scene). If you're shooting in aperture priority mode, you can either use spot metering on the brightest part (tough on moving subjects), or dial in minus exposure compensation to keep the camera from overexposing the whites.
Now when you do this, the rest of the frame will likely be very dark, because the dynamic range of the scene and bright light is too much to handle properly everywhere. That's where Richard was going with being aware of the light and avoiding harsh light. Processing your files can help return the tones in the rest of the scene, but basically, there's no way to expose the sky and tree well as above, AND not blow out the whites. It's one or the other - or something in between. Something in between, with some careful processing can work well.
If you want detail and definition in the feathers, there's only one thing harder to shoot than a white bird in hard light. That's a black and white bird in hard light.
You've gotten some good advice already. My two cents of advice is to shoot in softer light. Early morning (and I mean early), late afternoon or light high overcast is the best in my opinion. Remember, photography is all about light. Modern cameras and processing help, but a sharp well exposed frame that requires a minimum of processing should be the objective. Learn to use the histogram feature on your camera. It is the best on the job teaching tool available for learning exposure.
The beauty of digital photography is that you get instant feedback on your exposure. The darker the background, the more likely your camera is to overexpose the white of the egret. In the picture that you posted, the egret's head and neck are overexposed. This will show up as 'the blinkies' on your LCD if you have that feature turned on, and your histogram will be jammed up against the right of the graph. Try a few test shots and adjust your exposure compensate to reduce the exposure of the white egret. This may underexpose the other elements of the photo. If you are shooting a white egret against a bright background, such as water reflecting a white sky, your camera is less likely to overexpose the whites. In fact, it may actually underexpose since it wants to expose for midtones.
In the old days of shooting film, the maxim was "Expose for the highlights." That is, set the exposure to properly expose for the brightest elements in the frame and let the rest fall where they may.
In the digital age the saying goes, "Whites to the right." This means move the histogram as far to the right as you can without actually letting it touch the right side of the frame. If it does touch the right edge, you need to move it to the left using exposure compensation.
If you are shooting white birds against changing backgrounds, and the light is constant, you can determine the correct exposure for the bird and then use manual exposure mode. The exposure then will stay the same regardless of changes in the background and the exposure of the bird will remain constant as long as the light is constant.
Living in Fl I have fallen in love with the great egret and I've had to learn the same lesson myself since I just love to shoot them. You got some great advice and it all pretty much covers what I would say. I never shoot white birds after noon or before 4 PM . It just never works. I've also taken the advice of shooting spot metering and metering off the brightest whites which also resulted in great results. An overcast day is awesome for shooting egrets and I had one yesterday! Hope all this helps you achieve better images and remember Practice makes almost perfect. (I'm not sure there is such thing as perfect }
Are you using Matrix metering? This also causes problems.
Agree with the comments made by all the other folks. Good stuff.
BTW, the bird seems to be lit from behind. This doesn't help the
exposure very much.
Rich, What is ACR? That may sound stupid but I am not familiar with that acronym.
Sorry - ACR is Adobe Camera Raw. ACR is the "front end" of Adobe Photoshop that
does the raw conversion. It is a plug-in module that comes with Photoshop, PS Elements, and I think also with Adobe Lightroom. It "reads" the contents of raw files from most digital cameras. It allows many adjustments to be made to the raw data for white balance, various sliders that effect parts of the histogram (overall exposure, recover highlights, shift the middle, simulate fill flash), saturation, and other factors. Oncw you are happy with these adjustments ACR passes along the information as a tif to the rest of photoshop. The instructions for the adjustments are saved in a "sidecar" file so that the original raw file is never changed.
Hi Richard,
My best advice is in your comment, " I love Great White Egrets but have trouble capturing detail and definition when the sun is strong". Don't shoot in strong sunlight is the simple answer. But if you want to shoot in strong sunlight and in aperture priority, you will need to have a good understanding of exposure control. That will require the use of Exposure Compensation. Shooting Egrets in bright sunlight is probably not a good idea for getting good results. See image for the kind of results possible when shooting in low light.
Ronnie G.
Ronnie, that is the result I am looking for. All of the above comments make complete sense and I will put them to good use. Thanks for your help and the illustration of what proper lighting does to a white bird.
Discussion
10 repliesWhat you really need to do is be aware of the quality of the light as function of the time of day and avoid the harsh light that you'll encounter over most of the day. Experienced photographers know they need to be out as close to sunrise as possible and avoid such subjects for most of the rest of the day. Working with soft light at morning and evening, or on days with light overcast, will help tremendously.
You also need to know how your camera meter responds to light subjects. There are books full of charts for Canon shooters that tell them how much to compensate from the meter reading as a function of the size and tone of the subject against various types of backgrounds. For Nikon shooters - we tend to trust our accurate meters and make smaller compensations based on experience.
Shooting raw is definitely the better way to go with such subjects. Use the sliders in ACR to fine tune the histogram at the time of raw conversion: you want to keep the curve as far to the right as you can without the highlights blowing out (be sure to have the clipping indicators turned on during raw conversion.
Another thing to make sure of is that you have the Auto setting turned off in ACR - if the auto setting is on then ACR will make a mess of your exposure settings and it will do something different with every situation and you'll never get a feel for what you are doing correctly or incorrectly.
Now when you do this, the rest of the frame will likely be very dark, because the dynamic range of the scene and bright light is too much to handle properly everywhere. That's where Richard was going with being aware of the light and avoiding harsh light. Processing your files can help return the tones in the rest of the scene, but basically, there's no way to expose the sky and tree well as above, AND not blow out the whites. It's one or the other - or something in between. Something in between, with some careful processing can work well.
You've gotten some good advice already. My two cents of advice is to shoot in softer light. Early morning (and I mean early), late afternoon or light high overcast is the best in my opinion. Remember, photography is all about light. Modern cameras and processing help, but a sharp well exposed frame that requires a minimum of processing should be the objective. Learn to use the histogram feature on your camera. It is the best on the job teaching tool available for learning exposure.
The beauty of digital photography is that you get instant feedback on your exposure. The darker the background, the more likely your camera is to overexpose the white of the egret. In the picture that you posted, the egret's head and neck are overexposed. This will show up as 'the blinkies' on your LCD if you have that feature turned on, and your histogram will be jammed up against the right of the graph. Try a few test shots and adjust your exposure compensate to reduce the exposure of the white egret. This may underexpose the other elements of the photo. If you are shooting a white egret against a bright background, such as water reflecting a white sky, your camera is less likely to overexpose the whites. In fact, it may actually underexpose since it wants to expose for midtones.
In the old days of shooting film, the maxim was "Expose for the highlights." That is, set the exposure to properly expose for the brightest elements in the frame and let the rest fall where they may.
In the digital age the saying goes, "Whites to the right." This means move the histogram as far to the right as you can without actually letting it touch the right side of the frame. If it does touch the right edge, you need to move it to the left using exposure compensation.
If you are shooting white birds against changing backgrounds, and the light is constant, you can determine the correct exposure for the bird and then use manual exposure mode. The exposure then will stay the same regardless of changes in the background and the exposure of the bird will remain constant as long as the light is constant.
Thankls
Rick
Agree with the comments made by all the other folks. Good stuff.
BTW, the bird seems to be lit from behind. This doesn't help the
exposure very much.
Tks,
Oscar
Sorry - ACR is Adobe Camera Raw. ACR is the "front end" of Adobe Photoshop that
does the raw conversion. It is a plug-in module that comes with Photoshop, PS Elements, and I think also with Adobe Lightroom. It "reads" the contents of raw files from most digital cameras. It allows many adjustments to be made to the raw data for white balance, various sliders that effect parts of the histogram (overall exposure, recover highlights, shift the middle, simulate fill flash), saturation, and other factors. Oncw you are happy with these adjustments ACR passes along the information as a tif to the rest of photoshop. The instructions for the adjustments are saved in a "sidecar" file so that the original raw file is never changed.
My best advice is in your comment, " I love Great White Egrets but have trouble capturing detail and definition when the sun is strong". Don't shoot in strong sunlight is the simple answer. But if you want to shoot in strong sunlight and in aperture priority, you will need to have a good understanding of exposure control. That will require the use of Exposure Compensation. Shooting Egrets in bright sunlight is probably not a good idea for getting good results. See image for the kind of results possible when shooting in low light.
Ronnie G.