Stanpit Egret

[oldcanon]

A shot from a wander around Stanpit Marsh a couple of days ago. The Egret was busy feeding and appeared pretty unconcerned about me standing there banging shots off. I got a few which I liked but this one seemed to summarise how chilled he was

[djguk47]

Re: Stanpit Egret

White bird, darkish surrounds.. you were lucky not to produce a white "blob"

Like the ripples in the water, nicely caught....most certainly a "chilled" Egret

David

[oldcanon]

Re: Stanpit Egret

Thanks David - not sure about the "Lucky" though - maybe a little bit of skill there too (especially as I managed over 20 times! )

[djguk47]

Re: Stanpit Egret

Aha a well done then.... now maybe you can write a piece on how you avoided the dreaded "white blob"

David

[oldcanon]

Re: Stanpit Egret

no secret, I shot these in manual exposure (set using the "green grass as grey card" trick) dialled in a couple of additonal clicks on shutter speed to under-expose a tad, shot the first frame and checked it was OK, then carried on shooting, checking now and then that the lighting conditions hadn't changed. Final adjustment from RAW made in LR4 beta where I reduced the highlights a tad and that was it.

Expose for the lightest areas (using spot exposure setting if you are in Av or Tv mode) which is why I like manual exposure control as its quick and simple to use (just my level )

[Hereford_EOS2]

Re: Stanpit Egret

Well spotted and nicely captured.

[djguk47]

Re: Stanpit Egret

Thanks for the explanation of how you achieved this shot.It is information like this which is so very helpful and what makes this such a great forum


David

[oldcanon]

Re: Stanpit Egret

another shot from the same session, this time looking at an Egret that has just landed in a more open area of the marsh (using the same techniques)

[Trevoreast]

Re: Stanpit Egret

I like both, that second one looks really good, lots of detail. I imagine this is quite a challenge to expose for this particular bird.
Whatever settings you used you've succeeded !

Thanks for sharing your settings,the exif shows pettern/evaluative metering rather than spot.

Another easy way is to spot meter from the bird, adjust to whatever the camera's meter indicated 'correct' exposure - then overexposing, by using aperture or shutter speed.
Black birds, same thing but with under exposure.

WDYT ?

Trev

[mikep]

Re: Stanpit Egret

no secret, I shot these in manual exposure (set using the "green grass as grey card" trick) dialled in a couple of additonal clicks on shutter speed to under-expose a tad, shot the first frame and checked it was OK, then carried on shooting, checking now and then that the lighting conditions hadn't changed.

Stan gave me similar advice a while ago for when I was having trouble over-exposing Mute Swans. Centre spot metering on the Swan itself, then dial in +1 1/3 - +2 Exposure comp (as the camera will have metered against it's grey scale, so will have under exposed the swan! I hope that's clear, as it took me a while to work that out - it seems counter intuitive! ).
I'll have a try just dialling in some extra shutter speed next time I get the chance (as long as I am still happy at that shutter speed) and compare results!
I guess there's many ways to skin a cat! Many thanks!

All the best, Mike.

[oldcanon]

Re: Stanpit Egret

Thanks for the comments all, once you have sorted the technique these birds are very easy to expose for. They make lovely subjects too and I guess we get a bit blase down here as they are becoming almost as commonplace as Swans.
Yep, that would be the way with spot metering I guess Trev, I still find manual exposure is my favourite method these days, keeping a close eye on the histogram as I shoot (I have it set to show the histograme when I check the shot)

Yes Trev, you are right about the metering mode but as I said (maybe not clearly?) I only would use spot if working in Av or Tv modes. Here I am using manual exposure so set the aperture and shutter speed independently, thus ignoring the metering mode, just checking the exposure meter and histogramme as I along

[raymon]

Re: Stanpit Egret

Lovely images like them both a lot, thanks also for sharing your tecniques, not that I can understand them yet.

Ray

[mwphoto]

Re: Stanpit Egret

yep a couple of crackers there!

[Treff]

Re: Stanpit Egret

Both cracking pictures of a very difficult subject. I like mine well done with chips. Joking apart you have done a superb job.
Cheers
Treff

[oldcanon]

Re: Stanpit Egret

thanks for the new comments. #1 was put into a comp last night and the judge didn't rate it much, reckoned I had blown out the highlights and lost feather detail (makes you wonder what the see sometimes )