Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Same piling, same eagle - new day and new angle
Nikon Z6ii
f8
1/2000 sec
manual
ISO auto
560mm
The angle is much improved over the last one, Dan. It still seems a bit over sharpened and saturated (while it’s cool to have that beak so yellow, it’s bit too much for reality). The body seems pretty dark to me-enough so that there’s no visible plumage detail on the breast. I love the exposure on the whites of the head-nice and bright where they should be without any loss of detail. The head also shows that the focus was perfect, so very little sharpening, if any should have been needed.
I’d be interested in seeing what this looks like with just a straight conversion to jpeg without any processing.
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for posting an unsharpened version. Really nice pose you captured. Two things struck me about the (mostly) unedited version.
First, the exposure while good seems to be a little underexposed even in the whites. You may already do this, but to get the best exposure quickly in the field, I use highlight alert notifications (“blinkies”) to show any overexposure then I adjust settings to get just below that exposure (no blinkies). This should expose properly for the whites and you will have to raise shadows in post processing to show proper detail in the dark areas.
Second, the bird seems soft in the original version to the point that sharpening in post would be problematic. At 1/2000s, I think this is a fast enough shutter speed to get good sharpness even hand held. You may already do this also but I shoot even stationary subjects multiple times to counter any slight focus pulsing that may occur. I generally have a series that will have at least a few if not more really sharp shots especially for a subject as close as this one was.
What lens were you using?
Allen,
I was shooting 14 fps so have many images of this eagle. Unfortunately, almost all were underexposed. On some, I dropped to 1/500sec which gave better exposure and some of those are pretty sharp. I am using a Nikon Z100-400mm and had programmed the innermost ring on the camera for exposure compensation. I think my hand kept hitting that ring and underexposing the images. I have removed that control. I am still getting used to my new gear and should have a least a month of good shooting for this nesting pair so hopefully will improve. Thanks for your comments.
I could see cropping a bit from the left, but leave most of the space on the right-I like the more open feeling with the eagle looking to the right. Can lifting the shadows bring out more detail in the breast area? Sometimes using High Pass filter with blend mode on Soft Light works for sharpening-many ways to skin a cat in PS. You’ve found a willing subject and nice perch.
Hi Dan. I just noticed this setting. I find auto settings that affect exposure often leave too much up to the camera. Eagles, particularly on a day without varying light are pretty easy to expose properly. As Allen said, just adjust the settings to get the blinkies just off (actually I set mine so they just come on because the RAW file Has more leeway than the jpeg preview used to generate the blinkies and histogram). Since you’re interested in the whites, you can focus on anything white that’s in the same light (t-shirt, car, sign, etc.). I like f/8 for a large perched bird like this and I’d use 1/2000 just in case you catch a take-off or landing, then adjust iso for the blinkies and you’re set. (PS if you’re using mirrorless, you can set an overexposure indicator to show up in your viewfinder instead of the blinkies in the review image.)
