Blown whites on Egret

Crotal Bell

Crotal Bell

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Keith
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Looking for some guidance please.

I'm not really sure how much detail I should expect on the white body of an Egret, but this looks blown out to me.

SS 1/320 , F7.1 , ISO250. I try to keep slow shutter speeds for slow moving birds to keep the ISO low, but usually I would be at 1/500 for a shot like this.

This is the original Raw and I could not get closer, but it does crop and sharpen ok except for the white body.

Should I have dropped the Exposure Compensation? Would that be a good idea on bright birds ?

RAW.jpg
 
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lowering the ISO or the exposure compensation would help. the histogram can give you a clue and some cameras have overexposure warnings.
 
What metering mode was the camera using to determine the exposure?
 
There is nothing blown out in the image as presented. It's just a white bird in flat lighting... it is very hard to get any detail on a white monotone subject with flat lighting (omni-directional or frontal) as it fills in all shadows; and without shadows there is no contrast/visible detail.

Lowering the exposure will only make the bird a uniform grey instead.
 
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sk66 said:
There is nothing blown out in the image as presented. It's just a white bird in flat lighting... it is very hard to get any detail on a white subject with flat lighting (omni-directional or frontal) as it fills in all shadows; and without shadows there is no contrast or detail.

Lowering the exposure will only make the bird a uniform grey instead.
Click to expand...
Thanks Steven.
 
With some cameras you're OK dropping the exposure by lowering the ISO in order to ensure you retain highlights... with a truly ISO invariant camera you could just take every picture at base ISO (not that you would really want to). With a non-invariant camera, underexposing by lowering the ISO has negative impact on the shadows/darks. In all cases, reducing the exposure by recording less light (SS/Ap) has a negative impact on data/accuracy (color/DR/etc).

I have most of my Nikons set to highlight weighted metering & auto ISO so it will automatically drop the ISO to protect any highlights it sees (of sufficient size). Before that I set them to a -1 EC always. But not my Nikon1 or D5... those cameras are nowhere near ISO invariant (and I don't have the D5 anymore).
 
sk66 said:
With some cameras you're OK dropping the exposure by lowering the ISO in order to ensure you retain highlights... with a truly ISO invariant camera you could just take every picture at base ISO (not that you would really want to). With a non-invariant camera, underexposing by lowering the ISO has negative impact on the shadows/darks. In all cases, reducing the exposure by recording less light (SS/Ap) has a negative impact on data/accuracy (color/DR/etc).

I have most of my Nikons set to highlight weighted metering & auto ISO so it will automatically drop the ISO to protect any highlights it sees (of sufficient size). Before that I set them to a -1 EC always. But not my Nikon1 or D5... those cameras are nowhere near ISO invariant (and I don't have the D5 anymore).
Click to expand...
That's a massive learning curve for me but I think I get it (read it 3 times)
So you can give a camera a bias towards protecting highlights, I'll have to look into that on the G9.
-1 EC makes sense on the Egret, and on bright days, but won't that be a negative if you're out on a dull day taking pictures?
 
Next time you get a chance, spend a little time experimenting to see how to get the best results when shooting white birds. I tend to use spot metering for them then adjust after a quick review of the first shot.
 
Nod said:
Next time you get a chance, spend a little time experimenting to see how to get the best results when shooting white birds. I tend to use spot metering for them then adjust after a quick review of the first shot.
Click to expand...
Thanks Nod, I'll do that.
 
Crotal Bell said:
That's a massive learning curve for me but I think I get it (read it 3 times)
So you can give a camera a bias towards protecting highlights, I'll have to look into that on the G9.
-1 EC makes sense on the Egret, and on bright days, but won't that be a negative if you're out on a dull day taking pictures?
Click to expand...
This chart (LINK) shows how much actual benefit there is to raising the ISO on your G9. As you can see it maxes out at .39EV (ISO 1000). It's always less than 0.5 EV which is about the minimum needed to be visually perceptible.

Screenshot-2023-02-26-at-12.58.12-PM.jpg


What that means is that you could take every picture at base ISO (200) with essentially no penalty. Images where you don't record enough light (Ap/SS) will still look just as bad when recovered as they would if you had used a higher ISO to compensate, but they won't be notably worse. The big advantage is that you can selectively recover the underexposure, whereas ISO is global.

So my advice for the G9 is to drop the ISO anytime there is any doubt.
And you don't have to be careful about how far you drop it; as long as it's at least enough to prevent the ISO from pushing the highlights into clipping.
 
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sk66 said:
This chart (LINK) shows how much actual benefit there is to raising the ISO on your G9. As you can see it maxes out at .39EV (ISO 1000). It's always less than 0.5 EV which is about the minimum needed to be visually perceptible.

View attachment 382574


What that means is that you could take every picture at base ISO (200) with essentially no penalty. Images where you don't record enough light (Ap/SS) will still look just as bad when recovered as they would if you had used a higher ISO to compensate, but they won't be notably worse. The big advantage is that you can selectively recover the underexposure, whereas ISO is global.

So my advice for the G9 is to drop the ISO anytime there is any doubt.
And you don't have to be careful about how far you drop it; as long as it's at least enough to prevent the ISO from pushing the highlights into clipping.
Click to expand...
Thanks Steven, I usually manage to keep the ISO low with slow shutter speeds but I need to set a limit in my auto ISO and use the live view more.
I appreciate you taking the time to show me this.
 
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