Re: How can you photograph a crow in the snow?



>
> Sounds like a Dr Suse book!
>
> But seriously, I have a few crows that come to my front yard, quite tame,
and
> I'd like to take their picture... but all I get are black holes in the
snow!!
> Gamma adjustments don't do much good...
>
> I'm using a D70 with zoom...
>

camera meters assume a middle tone gray. If the sensor sees all that white
it will expose for it. the extreme of bright Brilliant white with a few
dots of black is too much for most media to record without a few tricks. In
film you would expose for the black and develop for the white.

I presume you are shooting on some kind of program auto exposure, fine, try
this...aim the sensor at the white and shoot, now aim the sensor at the
black and shoot again, in photoshop you can select your birds from the
detailed image of them and put them in the scene with the snow showing
detail. OK, its probable the birds are not big enough to make a difference
with the sensor.

set the camera on manual, Bright Sunny Day exposure is f/16 with a shutter
speed equal to your ISO (film) speed. since its snow that means you stop
down one extra, so for the snow its f/22 at say 1/125th. shoot one of the
snow and now set it at f/8 and that will expose for the birds.

if you shoot raw you can adjust your exposures, adjust one for the snow,
another for the birds, and combine in photoshop, you lay one right over the
other and use a mask, see the [o] symbol on bottom of the layer's pallet,
paint in the mask area with white or black and that effects how much of the
layer shows, you can select the birds and adjust them separately in another
layer, brighten them up and darken the snow.


.

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