What’s Up?
DAY 1 on the spoonbill boat was fair at best. In the morning, we had a very few good chances despite perfect conditions — lovely early light, low tide, and an east wind. In the afternoon we enjoyed the wind shift to the southwest, lots of flying Brown Pelicans (many carrying and landing with nesting material), and some pretty neat White Ibis blastoffs. We head back out this morning, Friday 20 MAR 2020.
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This image was created on 1 MAR 2020, the last day of the 1st Homer IPT. I used the handheld Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 312mm) with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 1250. Exposure determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/500 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB at 2:25pm on a cloudy afternoon. Wide AF-C performed surprisingly well. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version. Image #1: Northwestern Crow on snow, the original version |
Comments are Always Appreciated
In the What Kind of Nut Photographs Crows on a Mega-Epic Bald Eagle Trip? And Getting the Right Exposure for Black Birds on Snow in Soft Light blog post here, Steve left this comment:
Regarding today’s shot of the crow — the snow behind the bird looks like featureless white, and the bird itself is a dark charcoal-gray rather than black. You don’t think it’s a bit overexposed?
First off Steve, thanks for leaving the comment. All are appreciated. Apologies for not responding sooner but I had a plan for today’s blog post feature and needed a bit of time to execute it.
With regards to the snow, snow, in soft light will rarely show any detail. While it is often possible to pull out some detail using NIK Color EFEX Pro Detail Extractor, even fresh soft snow will wind up looking a bit crunchy. In most cases, I want to avoid that. In addition, I love the detail-less, white background studio-look. Call that artistic license if you would.
With regards to the tonality of the crow, it is very possible that in an effort to reveal detail in the darkest feathers I went a bit too far. That said, interpretations may vary widely due to personal tastes and differences in monitor brightness and viewing conditions. The latter includes the level of ambient light that falls on the monitor being used to view the image … Please scroll down to see a much blacker version.
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This image was created on 1 MAR 2020, the last day of the 1st Homer IPT. I used the handheld Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (at 312mm) with the blazingly fast AF King, the Sony Alpha a9 II Mirrorless Digital camera body. ISO 1250. Exposure determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/500 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB at 2:25pm on a cloudy afternoon. Wide AF-C performed surprisingly well. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version. Image #2: Northwestern Crow on snow, a blacker version |
The Blacker Crow
There are lots of options for making a crow’s feathers darker. I used just a bit of three different methods to come up with Image #2, the blacker version (immediately above). First, working on a separate layer, I pulled the Curve down. The darkened the bird and the snow a bit. Next, again working on a separate layer, I ran Image > Adjust > Auto Color and reduced the opacity to about 15%. This darkened the BLACKs and the MIDTONEs and lightened the snow. The last step was to add a layer of Selective Color, go to the BLACK and the NEUTRAL channels, and add 2-3 points of BLACK.
The breast of the bird in Image #2 looks a bit too BLACK for me with no detail at all. Perhaps the perfect version of this image lies somewhere between the two presented here today.
What Do You Think?
What do you think? Please be so kind as to share your thoughts on the two versions of Northwestern Crow in Snow by leaving a comment.
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Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right :).
I think I’ll go with #1. The amount of dark gray, or lighter black, on the underside of the crow likely is helped by the light reflected up off the snow, something most non-snow images will not benefit from. #2 by itself would be satisfactory to me, but seeing the detail extracted (in #1) makes me like the original better.
I work hard to manage the contrast ranges of eagles. Taking on crows and snow, even on a cloudy day is pretty sporting. Congratulations on getting the result you did. I’m impressed.
Your blog helps me learn something every time. Thanks for the effort you make on our behalf.
Be well out there.
Thanks for your kind words. They are greatly appreciated. Learning is always the goal here.
with love, artie
I agree with you that I’d like the darkest blacks on #2 to be a little lighter–halfway between #1 and #2.
Caveat that my monitor isn’t colour corrected.
Black bird on white snow is never going to be easy. I’m not familiar with the Northwestern crow but the European version isn’t black so dark grey feels fine.
Taken separately both pictures look great. I liked the original shot but once I saw the second shot I decided that perhaps the first was lacking some contrast. Looking at both images the second looks too contrasty, if I had to choose one I’d pick the first.
I have been photographing ravens for several decades. There has to be a catch light in the eyes for it to work. Your crow’s eyes meet the test.