Recovering the whites – part I

The photograph below is a White Ibis in a sleeping position.

White Ibis sleeping - Fort Desoto

White Ibis in sleeping position – Fort Desoto, Florida.

ISO 400 | f/7.1 | 1/2000 | Manual Mode w/ evaluative metering 0 EV | AI servo focus

This photograph was created with the Canon 600mm f/4 L IS II USM lens, the Canon EOS 5D mark III, mounted on a Jobu Design Gimbal head, over the Manfrotto 190CX carbon fiber tripod.

When capturing an image, you ideally want your whites not to be above 235. Though 255 is the limit beyond which the information is lost (or your histogram is clipped to the right), it takes a lot of work to recover details between 235 and 255. Think about that when you are in the field and adjusting your exposure. The histogram is the best upgrade (by far) that digital brought over film. In the photograph above, I ran a Detail Extractor filter at 70% from Color Efex Pro 4 plug-in of Nik Softwares. Follow our link to enjoy a 15% discount! 🙂
This filter is very convenient to recover either highlights or shaded areas.

This is also another reason why you want to shoot in RAW versus JPEG. When importing the RAW picture into Photoshop, one can play a bit with the Recovery slider to recover burnt highlights.

See below an animated GIF with the original creation, versus the Color Efex Pro 4 enhanced one.

White Ibis recovered

Before and after Detail Extractor

Note that I also cleaned up the area around the eye with the patch and clone tools from Photoshop.

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Steven

A bird eating a shark?

The following photograph depicts a Great Blue Heron in flight with a baby shark in its beak!

Great Blue Heron with a shark in its beak

Great Blue Heron flying away with a baby shark in its beak – Fort Desoto, Florida.

ISO 100 | f/5.6 | 1/2000 | Ap Mode w/ evaluative metering -1 EV | AI servo focus

This photograph was created with the Canon 600mm f/4 L IS II USM lens, the Canon EOS 7D, mounted on a Jobu Design Gimbal head, over the Manfrotto 190CX carbon fiber tripod.

The photograph above is absolutely real! Those Great Blue Herons are fierce birds ad would eat anything given a certain size range. See below a blown up view on the beak:

Great Blue Heron eating a shark

Incredible!

Birds have a very powerful digestive system. The photograph below is another Great Blue Heron catching a Sea Horse this time.

Great Blue Heron catching a Sea Horse

Great Blue Heron catching a Sea Horse – Fort Desoto, Florida. See our full species index.

ISO 640 | f/8 | 1/2000 | Ap Mode w/ evaluative metering 0 EV | AI servo focus

This photograph was created with the Canon 600mm f/4 L IS II USM lens + 1.4 EX III, the Canon EOS 7D, mounted on a Jobu Design Gimbal head, over the Manfrotto 190CX carbon fiber tripod.

Is not that another amazing catch? See below a blown up.

Great Blue Heron eating a Sea Horse

I feel bad for the Sea Horse

In both of the photographs presented, I applied a couple of filters from the Color Efex Pro 4 plug-in of Nik Softwares. Follow our link to enjoy a 15% discount on the latter! 🙂 The entire Nik Softwares collection is now for sale at $149. Add to that a 15% discount when following the link above, that gives you a very effective set of Photoshop plug-ins at $126.65!

ANSWER TO “Secrets for attractive blurs”: The first blur of Crows flying off was taken at 1/15 of a second shutter speed, while the Double-crested Cormorant was taken at 1/30 of a second shutter speed. This is partly why the ghosting effect is stronger with the Crows, as the shutter speed was a bit slower.

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Steven

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