The light cloud of the past few days has cleared, and this morning I was greeted by a beautiful sunlit autumn day. And by a heron. All these shots were taken within a few minutes of each other. The heron changed its location a couple of times but always along the north/north west of the pond. The light was just edging up over the trees and hills from the east. I changed my position several times, partly to get closer but also to make use of the different effect of shooting with, across and into the sun. In all but one case only very minor adjustments have been made in processing the shots.
For this first shot (and it was my first shot) I had the sun behind me. This is the 'full colour' shot.
The next shots were taken from the north-east edge of the pond., so the sun was behind me but I was shooting across from an angle. The colours are more muted as most of the light is behind the heron.
The heron then decided to take a short flight, passing in front of the wooded island in the centre of the pond. This is the only shot I've adjusted more than marginally. It was badly underexposed because as the heron moved away from the bright reflection of the water to the darkness of the trees the auto-exposure adjusted by dropping the shutter speed. The whites of the heron were blown (no detail) and there was precious little contrast. Darkening the shot to highlight the bird rather than the background makes a big difference.
The final sequence were deliberately taken more or less directly into the sun to produce a silhouette. The main difficulty was getting enough light reflection behind the heron to capture its head against a light rather than dark background.
The light was more or less the same for all the photos (the sun did rise a few degrees between first and last shot), but I think they show just how much the overall image can be affected simply by moving around and changing the angle of the light.
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D EF and 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.
Dudley
15 Oct 2011:up:
anonymous
15 Oct 2011Anonymous writes:
I like the darkened heron shot the best! A nice warmth about it…
Marilyn
gdare
15 Oct 2011Excellent shots, indeed :yes:
claudeb
15 Oct 2011As a famous photographer once said, the best zoom lens is "take two steps backwards". And indeed, with a modern automatic (or mostly-auto) camera, moving around and changing your aim is often the best way to get the picture you want. But that's an art in itself. Good work!
SittingFox
16 Oct 2011Interesting experiment – compass by heron :right:
Really does go to show the impact of light. No wonder we spend so much time trying to adjust the camera's settings!
Words
16 Oct 2011Felix, thanks! I'm getting used to having to move around as I don't often carry a zoom lens these days.
Words
16 Oct 2011Darko, thanks!
Words
16 Oct 2011Andy, thanks!
Words
16 Oct 2011Erwin, thanks!
Words
16 Oct 2011Adele, nearly all the shots were taken with exposure compensation at -1 or more. The main adjustments were to the ISO setting. I think the range here is from 100 to 1000.
Words
16 Oct 2011Marilyn, thanks. That's how I would have liked to capture the shot. Do-able if I had simply locked the exposure before it crossed the dark background. Still, a bit of correction in photoshop is ok 😉
cakkleberrylane
18 Oct 2011Very creative use of light! I especially liked the dramatic effect of the dark one (4th shot)
serola
18 Oct 2011Excellent lesson Words, thanks :up: We at Shoot & Tell have planned to invite some quest photographers and authors to write something like this. Would you be interested? If yes, then I can contact via PM for more details.
Originally posted by Words:
I have learned to do somewhat similar. Although, it much varies on how dark or light is the background. I guess spot meter is not necessarily good choice when shooting moving/lively objects.
Words
18 Oct 2011Lois, I like the 4th one too, but it was the one shot that needed heavy processing to bring out what I would have photographed if I had got it right!
Words
18 Oct 2011Sami, thanks! I've PMd you.
serola
19 Oct 2011Thank you very much Words
Mickeyjoe-Irl
26 Oct 2011The silhouettes are stunning.
Words
26 Oct 2011Mick, thanks!
derWandersmann
26 Oct 2011I sympathise with you on the dark shot of the heron in flight … a tight spot reading would have exposed him properly, but the difficulty of keeping that spot on a flying bird cannot be overemphasised. One is tempted to shout "Slow down!"
In the silhouette shots, it's a pity your choices of motion didn't include levitation, but the shots certainly came out well enough.
I love the shot where the sun is lighting up the translucent bill.
Words
26 Oct 2011dW, I used to use spot metering all the time but I've generally found 'evaluative' metering better. Either way, if the bird is going to cross from a very bright to a dark background I try to lock the exposure. It beat me to it this time though.
Wulpen
19 Oct 2012Excellent shots there are Indeed :up: