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This image was created at Jones Beach State Park last week with the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 2x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X Digital SLR camera. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/50 sec. at f/10 in Manual Mode. Central sensor (by necessity) Expand/AI Servo/Rear Focus on the center of the bird’s breast active at the moment of exposure. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. |
The Original Capture
On Saturday past, the many photographers who parked in the main lot at Nickerson Beach were asked to leave by two guys in a little cart as a crew was going to pave the lot. So we did. I could have re-parked by the administration building and walked back but instead, I decided to head back to my Mom’s via the Jones Beach Strip. En route I decided to visit West End and see what I could do from the car (without a BLUBB….)
The medians were full of tiny, gorgeous purple flowers; some sort of ground cover, I guess. On the way in there were Killdeer and robins in the colorful patches but my 600 II was in the trunk. Once I got set up of course the birds were few and far between and getting close was nearly impossible. For the American Robin image above I rested the lens on the window frame. I have no idea why the image was so over-exposed; perhaps I had pointed at something very dark and accidentally hit the AF-On button (that functions as my star button and locks the exposure). But I decided to see what I could do as there seemed to be some promise and I do not have much on robin.
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The Image in DPP
The screen capture above shows how the image looked once I brought it into DPP, Canon Digital Photo Professional. I hit ALT M and saw that there were lots of red patches that serve as over-exposed highlight warnings. That you need to hit ALT M each and every time is somewhat of a challenge; it does not stick. I have let the folks at Canon know and they have promised to pass along my suggestion to have the Highlight (ALT M) and Shadow (ALT N) warning stick once you set them once.
Does the image look sharp enough at only 1/50 sec. without adequate support? Does it look as if the highlights can be recovered? How quickly would you delete this image? Or do you think that it is salvageable?
DPP RAW Conversion Guide
DPP is fast and produces high quality image files with accurate colors and low noise levels. To learn more about how and why I use DPP to convert all of my Canon images see our DPP RAW Conversion Guide here.
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This 3-frame in-camera HDR Art Vivid image was created with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Lens, the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III . ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop yielded a base exposure of 1/125 sec. at f/13 in Av mode. 2-second timer. Note: I should have used more + compensation for all but the first image here as the Art Vivid JPEGs are always on the dark side. Central sensor/AI Servo Surround/Rear Focus AF on the bottom of the flower part of the bud. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image for a larger version. |
My Favorite Iris Bud
In the “Tough Call on Hey Bud” blog post, I asked folks which of the five iris bud images was there favorite. Iris bud #1 was the overwhelming choice and #3 got a vote as well. I thought that #4 was clearly the weakest image but nobody voted for my favorite, #5 above, either.
What I loved most about #5 was the bright green background and the patterns and purple edging of the scale, the buds protective cover.
More Short Notice, Dirt Cheap, Small Group, In-the-Field Nickerson Beach Photographic Instruction with Arthur Morris. May 27 (am & pm), May 28 (am & pm) and May 29 (am only). All 2013 of course. Morning sessions: 5am sharp-9:30 am. Afternoon sessions: 4pm til whenever. These are priced so low that you need to e-mail for the rates. Limit 5/session.
If you e-mail, please include all phone numbers. Payment in full due immediately via credit card after calling the office on a weekday: 863-221-2372. If you would like to join me, please get in touch via e-mail. Breeding American Oystercatcher (chicks likely) and Piping Plover (chicks possible). Common Tern and Black Skimmer/courtship behaviors. Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls. Breeding plumage Sanderling and other shorebird species. Lots of flight photography when the wind is right. Learn digital exposure and creative image design. Learn to create pleasing blurs at 5am.
Nickerson Baby Beach-nesting Birds IPT: July 23-25, 2013: $1099. Introductory slide program: Monday, July 22, 2013. Limit 12/Openings: Sold Out. Co-leader: Denise Ippolito.
IPT Info
For complete IPT info including schedule, cancellation policies, and the registration and release forms, click here.
It’s Not Too Late! New York City–On Location with Denise Ippolito & Arthur Morris May 25 – 26, 2013, 2-day Workshop-$495
Join Denise Ippolito and Arthur Morris for a two-day creative workshop in the Big Apple. This exciting adventure through the streets of NYC will begin with an informal get-together at our hotel on the evening of May 24th. This will give us all a chance to get to know each other before we hit the streets in the morning for our first exciting photo shoot. We will explore China Town, Little Italy, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station (tripod permit included) and much more during our two days together. The emphasis will be on street photography, seeing and capturing dynamic images, and expanding your creativity using a variety of in-camera techniques including HDR and Multiple Exposure.
Please contact me via e-mail for complete details and the itinerary.
Next Year In Holland
Despite a 100-year record cold spring with very few tulip fields in bloom this trip has been a spectacular success. The colors and variety of tulips at Keukenhof simply stun the mind and the senses. Denise and I are planning our Holland trip for next year: the Keukenhof Creative Tulip Photography IPT with a Touch of Holland. If you are a Happy Camper who is interested in joining Denise and me next spring, please shoot me an e-mail. Details will be announced soon.
We are currently fleshing out the details. The dates will be about the same, in mid April. In addition to the Keukenhof and the flower fields we will do an afternoon of windmills at Kinderdijk, a day in Amsterdam including a morning at the Rijks Museum and an afternoon visit to the Ann Frank House plus some street photography. We will do some street photography and fine dining in the little town of Edam. There will be about 7-9 days of photography in all. Those will include an afternoon option for a day or two of Purple Herons for those with long lenses.
Note: not surprisingly, early interest has been huge with several folks who want to sign up right now. The formal announcement of the dates and price is imminent.
Typos
On all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or leave a comment regarding any typos, wrong words, misspellings, omissions, or grammatical errors. Just be right. 🙂
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Hi Art, need to ask a question, I tried DPP with my 5D III and on the same RAW image then tried Lightroom 5 beta and why does the DPP look better? I mean in lightroom when I saved to TIFF and TIFF in DPP the lightroom image had more noise and DPP was cleaner, and that is with no noise reduction on both, also color was better in DPP, can’t understand that.
Thanks
Chris;)
I am not familiar with DPP but it certainly looks like it would edit well in ACR. Histogram looks excellent and sharpness looks OK even in this small image. Pretty much a perfect digital exposure–well to the right. Small blinkies are probably false indicators since they are based on jpg thumbnail.
While I do advise folks to expose to the right I would generally not work this light for several reasons: #1: here doing do yielded a marginal shutter speed. #2: I like to bring my WHITEs into DPP (or into ACR when I used to use it) with RGB values no greater than 230-235. Denise prefers235-240. Else it is too much work to reveal detail….
Hi Artie, If I have offended you I am sorry as I missed the point. I am certain that you can improve this picture and you shall show us your digital magic. Next time it could be a very rare bird that was overexposed and you want to show us that not all is lost! Thanks for your effort.
No worries. I strive to never take things personally :).
Hi Art,
From what I can see on my Blackberry, the image looks sharp enough.
Therefore your support must have been adequate.
The highlights look like they could easily be recovered, so I would not delete this image. Composition may need a little work, as the bird looks bang in the centre
But from everything I have read in Digital Basics, you will have no issues at all with this image.
Sharp enough is thanks to good technique and 4-stop IS.
You say that the bird is dead centered. It is not. There is 2 1/2 times more room from the bill tip to the left frame edge than from the tail tip to the right frame edge. For me that is a pretty much perfect image design. Is the head near the center of the frame? Yes. But that is not the issue.
That’s an easy one. You should have no problem pulling a nicely exposed image out of that. The sharpness appears to be decent enough from what I can see in the wings and my guess is that it will be fine too.
I was having trouble telling how sharp the image is because the contrast is so low, but then I thought of tilting my laptop’s screen and it looked fine. In any case, I’d be shocked–shocked!–if you couldn’t make a fine image out of it.
Maybe this is not what you want to hear. I am convinced there are ways to improve this picture, but is it worth the effort? If it was a very rare and unique bird it would be different, but I would just wait for another robin.
Agree. Believe it is sharp and only small areas overexposed. Should have a beautiful oof background. He looks puzzled trying to figure out why you didn’t have the BLUBB…
It’s a keeper, just Very exposed well to the right which leads me to believe it will be a very detailed image once recovered. The Robin looks overall sharp to me for 1/50th of a second (good job), and at f/10 enough dof on the bird. Also think the background and forground is going to look sweet by the time your done. Good luck, can’t wait to see what ya do.
ditto
I know you’re using DPP most, if not all, of the time, but I wouldn’t delete it until I gave it a shot in ACR. It may not be an award winner, but it may be worth keeping if you can restore it. Maybe have a contest here to see who can do the best restoration job? (of course, you’d win!)