What did I do wrong?

[bardinjw]

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So far I have been more frustrated with digital more than any thing else and not happy with any of my work. While I see value in post processing, sometimes I get the feeling that it is just away to cover up deficiencies in the work and does not require paying as much attention to details actually taking the the photo. As it is I am learning the mechanics but have not been able to put it all together to produce work I would be willing to show to others.
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Don't give up! You can make the transition. The work you do in post is part of the process - taking the place of what would be done in the dark room, or by whomever processes your film. Shoot raw, and convert later; it's not just for salvaging bad shots, it will make everything better in general.


When working with digital, you generally have less dynamic range to work with, so you have to nail your exposure in camera. The preview on the camera's lcd is often deceiving. Setup your camera to show the histogram when you shoot, so you can see exactly how you're exposing. I like to have the highlight alert on (can't remember if that's what it's called right now), so it flashes areas of the photo that are clipped.

[Brendan7]

Your bird isn't anywhere near the setting sun so nobody can tell it's from a sunset. Then, your exposure is wrong. f11???? That just underexposes the image and looks like a plain technical error. The Great Egret, which is an all-white bird, looks gray. The bluish sky looks gray. To get a sunset effect the bird needs to be flying near the horizon/setting sun -- and then you expose the sunset, not the bird (get a silhouette-type image). Here are some arthur morris examples:


1/1000 sec f/6.3 ISO 400


http://www.birdsasart.com/Great-Blue-Heron-stretching-red-sunset-_G0R8001-Fort-DeSoto-Park,-St.jpg


1/600 f/5.6 ISO 2000


http://gallery.mailchimp.com/94ad23bd96f48a1de2ca612b3/images/675FCCF896274E97AD8BA6E8E651741C_ArthurMorris09.jp g


Now those are Arthur Morris but the idea is to get the bird near the source of the sunset -- the sun!!! Then expose for a silhouette.


Don't worry about ISO 400 on any body. Use it freely, it'll help you w/ shutter speed; for BIF a shutter speed of 1/1000+ is required.


hope that helped..


brendan

[JJphoto]

I sometimes got this kind of result when shooting bigger white birds like this egret. I figure it happen in the following situation:


when shooting white egret with a darker background(say trees), I set auto focus with at least -1stop exposure compensation, AV priority and evaluative metering mode. usually you can get correct exposure of the bird but background will be underexposed.then the bird takes off to the sky, and you keep shooting the bird in flight, because the sky and the bird have similar brightness, with the -1stop compensation, the whole scene will be -1 stop underexposed like the picture you are showing. to avoid that, use manual exposure to lock the correct exposure.


please anybody, correct me if anything wrong.

[Sheiky]

Then, your exposure is wrong. f11???? That just underexposes the image and looks like a plain technical error. The Great Egret, which is an all-white bird, looks gray. The bluish sky looks gray.

Brendan you could have chosen your words a bit nicer I think. I also think youve got the wrong idea. He doesn't want to make a silhouette shot like the examples you've posted, but he just wanted the sunset-glow on the egret, which sounds pretty fair to me.


I think this is the kind of idea that he wanted to achieve (the glow on the egret):http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertwalker/1008558015/


Please correct me if I'm wrong.


I think Bardinjw's try at this shot is about the idea what he wanted to achieve. Perhaps even a tiny bit overexposed? You don't really get the glow on there yet, but it also could be due to jpeg quality. With the original I think you could manage to get quite a good photo if you know how to turn some sliders etc.


Normally you would have exposed the bird properly so the white egret looks white etc. , but in this case it's not only the bird he wants to expose, but he also wants to expose a little bit of that sunsetglow onto the white egret. To do that he probably needs to underexpose the white egret just a tad so the sunsetglow gets visible on the bird. And also like mentioned earlier, adjust the white balance so hte glow gets visible. A White Egret in sunset-light doesn't look white, believe me. If I put a blue light on someones face, they also look blue [:P]

The bluish sky looks gray

Yes it does, but from where I come from a blue sky is a gift that isn't always available and the sky looks like this an awful lot of times... [:P] I rented the 7D and 100-400 for an airshow this weekend and the sky was so grey that the 7D wouldn't focus on a plane, because a grey sky and a grey plane made it too difficult for it. I wish I had some more bluish sky that day...

but the idea is to get the bird near the source of the sunset -- the sun!!! Then expose for a silhouette.

Don't get the bird to close to the sun if you don't want fried egret [:P] but yes you're right about the silhouette thing.



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The color turned out really flat and dark, and I added this black border and threw in the fancy name plate to keep it from looking so blahhh (not that it helped a lot).

That fancy nameplate made quite a difference haha I love it!



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I prolly should have dropped the shutter down a little to help out the ISO given the slow speed of the bird but only had the camera for a month at the time and wasn't for sure when things start to blur.

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I hope your photo turns out to be great after all, I can see the potential.


Good luck,


Jan
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[andnowimbroke]

Brendan you could have chosen your words a bit nicer I think. I also think youve got the wrong idea. He doesn't want to make a silhouette shot like the examples you've posted, but he just wanted the sunset-glow on the egret, which sounds pretty fair to me.

I'm not upset with Brendan and appreciate his advice, but also thanks forcoveringmy back Sheiky[] I'm trying to go through all my pics before the Beta ended (nothing like waiting until the end) and was pilling up old pics that almost had possibilities. I liked the idea, but not so much the outcome. Part of that is the lens. Here's what most of my pics looked like untouched with more proper exposure.


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yikes! It didn't like anything white or reflective.

[Sheiky]

I'm not upset with Brendan and appreciate his advice, but also thanks forcoveringmy back Sheiky[img]/emoticons/emotion-5.gif[/img]

No problem, I'm not upset either by the way. You did ask what you were doing wrong so I guess Brendan had a good point saying it this way [:P] it's just not my idea of constructive advice.

I liked the idea, but not so much the outcome. Part of that is the lens. Here's what most of my pics looked like untouched with more proper exposure.

Anyway I've shot with that Tamron 70-300 before and I know that this lens costs practically nothing, but also delivers quite some post-processing work [] From what I've experienced this lens is only getting sharp and gets its contrast @ f8-f11 so your chosen aperture of f11 didn't look weird to me. This lens suffers a LOT from chromatic aberrations and so your last picture looks familiar [A]


I guess a lot of the lenses flaws can be restored or adjusted in post-processing, but it's a massive amount of work to make it look great so good luck with that!

I'm trying to go through all my pics before the Beta ended (nothing like waiting until the end) and was pilling up old pics that almost had possibilities.

What Beta? Lightroom 3?

[Brendan7]

No problem, I'm not upset either by the way. You did ask what you were doing wrong so I guess Brendan had a good point saying it this way [img]/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img] it's just not my idea of constructive advice.

My bad. The oil spill is pissing me off [8o|]


Anywho I wasn't there when the photo was taken, but from what I can tell the bird wasn't in the sunset light, and b/c of this the sunset glow didn't really come through. Something I do is get low so I can get the bird flying over the sunset in the horizon in the BG.


brendan

[andnowimbroke]

My bad. The oil spill is pissing me off [img]/emoticons/emotion-39.gif[/img]

You guys are funny[] Don't get me started on politics though. I can rant for days but my index fingers can't keep up.


I don't know how many pics I have of angel-looking birds! It's great if that's what your looking for..me, not so much. It got me into photography for pleasure but didn't give me a "real" perspective of what lenses cost. I did end up going bigger and better because of the amount of time riding my bike through hilly, gravel roads with flattish tires only to squat in crap for extended periods of time and come up with this. On the plus side, while waiting for my birds to do something other than stretch, I flipped my macro switch and got a hopper. It might be a bit over-saturatedfrom post. The quality sucks because it's a copy of a copy of a jpeg. Still gets the point across. Original looked better...if I can ever find it again.


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Sheiky, it's LR3 Beta. Heard it's kicking the bucket this month. Part of the other problem I'm having is my computer needs updated bad. I'll move the sliders and nothing will happen for ages. Then I get lost as to what move did what.

[Sheiky]

I don't know how many pics I have of angel-looking birds! It's great if that's what your looking for..me, not so much.

Haha yes that's very annoying. Does the lens correction in lightroom 3 make positive changes to that?

Part of the other problem I'm having is my computer needs updated bad. I'll move the sliders and nothing will happen for ages. Then I get lost as to what move did what.

Yeah LR3 takes quite a bit of power. I can see why post-processing isn't appealing to you [] By the way, I'm a student and therefor I could get quite some discount on LR3 and CS5. And I think it's really a big update to Lightroom 2.


Also there are always some less-legal options[A]...

Don't get me started on politics though.

We even had a group called the pirate-party who could be elected during the national elections this year! They are pro-downloading etc...really funny! of course they ended up with nothing, but the idea was pretty funny [:P]

[andnowimbroke]

Does the lens correction in lightroom 3 make positive changes to that?

My demo died so I'm not for sure. I never tried to pull a picture out of it when it starts off that bad. That might sound funny considering these other crappy pictures I've posted, but even I have limits to my suckiness I might have tried it on my bee picture but it didn't work out so hot, then one of the pros on this site hooked me up with a cure in PS with a mask,ect.

I'm a student and therefor I could get quite some discount on LR3 and CS5

I was supposed to do the school thing this summer, butmaybe I'll do the fall thing and see what happens. As you know, LR3was WAAAY better on most everything as compared to previous versions. NR actually works!

We even had a group called the pirate-party who could be elected during the national elections this year!

That's so funny! Do they have minimum requirements to run for office? Almost forgot, is your country known for miniature golf? I heard it somewhere and thought I'd ask.


Greg