[fgates]

Finally, we had a nice weekend and I was able to go out and take some photos. I would appreciate comments on this picture. I have been trying to take a decent picture of a crow for some time now. They are shy and too black. I would appreciate tips on how to take pictures of such dark subjects.

Fred

[Summerleft]

I like the composition and the shadows they cast, I think a tighter crop on this would help. Obviously getting in closer but depends on your lense and how much you can sneak up on them before the fly off lol

Their bodies looks grey almost white in part it looks like its the sunlight, what settings did you use?

[skipper954]

This is not bad. I like the reflections of the birds. I would, however, lop off about 1/3 from the bottom. It makes a better composition.

I have tried birds on the beach, and even with a long lens, I have problems. Seems like they are always looking out to sea, and I am behind them.

[fgates]

Thanks for the comments Summerleft and Skipper. The crows here are grey and black. If you are interested, the EXIF file can be seen in the gallery view (I tried pasting it here, but it didn't work right.

Fred

[Summerleft]

Originally Posted by fgates

The crows here are grey and black. .

I was going to ask if they were then thought it was a silly question, I guess it wasn't

[Charlotte]

Fred, the exif data is not showing in your gallery either.

I had a peek at the histogram of this shot, which confirmed that it is overexposed. There are several factors affecting exposure in this shot:

1) The subject itself (the crows) is quite high contrast.
2) The direction of light is putting their faces (particularly the nearest one) + parts of their bodies into shadow.
3) The water is causing glare.

If you used (Canon's equivalent of) matrix metering, the camera has taken into account all of the tones in the scene, then averaged them out to a mid-grey, which in this case has resulted in overexposure, but because it's quite high-contrast, there's also lost detail in the shadows (dark areas on the birds).

The best way to get these crows correctly exposed would be to use spot metering. Take a reading off the grey part of the bird if possible and, using manual exposure, set that as your mid-tone. Or you could read off the black part of the bird + set that as your darkest tone. Check your histogram + fine-tune accordingly, adding or reducing a half-stop of exposure to capture the detail of the birds. If in doubt, bracket your shots, then when you get them home you'll have a range of exposures to choose the best one. Or if you were so inclined, you could do an HDR out of them (bracket 3 shots, two-stops apart).

Try to get dark birds against a darker background, not a bright BG as in this shot. Foliage would be a good BG for dark birds like these (on a bright day like in this scene), but you'd need to use a shallow DoF to blur the BG so's not to be distracting. A blue sky would also make a good BG I think. This will reduce the contrast so that it is within the range of your camera + you should get a well-exposed photo.

HTH

PS They are also a bit far away for us to see any detail anyway; a longer lens would be better suited to this type of shot.

Also a lower viewpoint would've been better here, so that the camera would not be looking down on the birds.

PPS Love their reflections

[fgates]

Thanks Charlotte for the comments. I have tried a lot of other pictures of the crows and this is the first one that was acceptable. I will certainly try to spot meter off the bird, but they tend to fly away if they are close enough to get a good reading off. I guess that I need a longer lens

I can see the EXIF file, I just checked. Is there something that I can do to make it accessible to others?

Fred

[Charlotte]

Fred, I tried a couple myself today Tried capturing some crows against blue sky, such as I had suggested to you ... it was still too bright to get a good exposure on the birds, and they came out underexposed.

Here is one I took of a blackbird recently on my lawn, just to show you what a difference the background can make. Grass is considered as a mid-tone (forget colour), and you can see I managed to get a good exposure on the bird, with all details visible. The range of tones here is about as full as my camera is capable of capturing without losing detail in shadows and/or highlights. Had the BG been any brighter (e.g. sky) or more reflective (e.g. water) then the exposure would have been tricky, as in your shot.



Anyway, just thought I'd post an example here for you to see, and to tell you of the factors which influenced the exposure.

[AQ]

Originally Posted by Summerleft

I was going to ask if they were then thought it was a silly question, I guess it wasn't

The crow (Corvus corone) is very variable. In western Europe they are generally black all over. In eastern Europe and also as far as I have seen the rest of the world they are the grey and black subspecies, normally called the Hooded Crow. Apparently there are also different races of the hooded crow that can be distinguished ( if you are really interested )

[Charlotte]

And in southern Africa you get the Pied Crow which is black + white (and a much bigger bird than the crows here). Another bit of useless information If you google "pied crow" you can see pic's (which I can't post here, since I didn't take 'em )

[fgates]

I like your picture Charlotte. I posted another crow that I had taken some time ago against a darker background. That is the only other one that has almost worked. I've got to try spot metering on the grey.

[Charlotte]

Fred, this one looks good to me A bit of sharpening + crop out some of the BG is all this needs.