R7 fly-by

itsallBb2me wrote:

R2D2 wrote:

Very nice capture. I especially like the first one.

‘Thanks.

I really really like fly-bys (with other birds). It's always such a treat when that happens.

Click on "original size" for a larger view.

Adult baldies are very hard to expose, especially in direct sunlight. If you preserve the (all-important) head, then the underside of the wings goes very dark. Not much a person can do about that, and still leave it looking natural. It’s one reason I like shooting eagles over snow!

Really/ I would think the snow might complicate the exposure challenge. Which exposure mode do you prefer for these conditions?

Presence of snow on the ground reflects a significant amount of light onto the underside of the wings, evening out the exposure more.

Like having a big reflector pointing upward

I shoot everything in full Manual. I get the exposure right for the whites, pushing them to the right edge on the histogram (basically ETTR, though not in the strictest sense). Just so I get a little bit of the blinkies (I use the "Standard" Picture Style). The darks tend to get darker though, and lifting them gets noisy, thus my fondness for DxO's Deep Prime Noise Reduction (RAW shooters only!).

When you shoot in full Manual, then your subject's exposure remains entirely consistent, whether they're flying in front of dark pines, or out under the blue sky, or in front of clouds (and everywhere in between). You just need to watch for changes in light (ie clouds or shade), and changes in light direction (ie sunny side of the subject vs shaded side).

This consistency of exposure also makes post processing much easier!

Agree with the other poster though that the IQ is fairly rough. Maybe a bit of back focus (on the far wingtips) in the first frame? Maybe a bit of near focus (on the near wingtips) in the second frame?

I especially like DxO Photolab for its Deep Prime NR. Also I’d pass on the vignette and artificial blur.

Here’s the original SOOC JPEG. As you can see, the published image was a pretty tight crop.

Still, it's not as tack sharp as I would expect given the high shutter speed. There are several possibilities.

Could be atmospherics. You were shooting from a pretty long distance.

Could be camera shake. Was the Image Stabilization turned on? What Mode?

Could be blur induced by the stabilization.

Could be a result of mis-tracking of the subject (by yourself).

Could be the autofocus. Can you detail your settings for us?

Could be affected by the Post Processing even.

There may be some things we can rule out here.

As I recall, there was no artificial blur.

Definitely some blur has been applied to the right half of the image. I noticed it just because it was a bit discordant with the rest of the image...

As posted in the OP

Your SOOC (no add'l blurring).

Still really nice captures (from a non-technical POV). You most often don't get a choice in what type of photo a bird will give you!

R2