Sunday Action at the Bend

[preames]

Sunday sunrise at BBSP...

















and a couple of portraits...

[jfoureyes]

Wow... another fabulous series of images!! No favorites for me... they are all mighty fine!

[Glassman]

Originally Posted by jfoureyes

Wow... another fabulous series of images!! No favorites for me... they are all mighty fine!

I was thinking the same thing..WOW>

[mkweaver]

Great captures on the action! Can you get more detail in the whites?
I had wanted to get out there this week end, but was afraid it would be over-crowded what with the holiday visitors, etc.

[snidow]

Good work Patrick, looks like it was a great trip out shooting.

[preames]

Originally Posted by jfoureyes

Wow... another fabulous series of images!! No favorites for me... they are all mighty fine!

Thanks Jim!

Originally Posted by Glassman

I was thinking the same thing..WOW>

And you too Billy!

Originally Posted by mkweaver

Great captures on the action! Can you get more detail in the whites?
I had wanted to get out there this week end, but was afraid it would be over-crowded what with the holiday visitors, etc.

Thanks Martha. The white birds do create a lot of challenges, particularly in the morning light when they are well lit but there is not a lot of light in the backgrounds. I shoot almost full time with "highlight tone priority" turned on, which helps to preserve as much detail in the whites as possible. But the high contrast between the well lit white birds and the dark backgrounds means I have to underexpose those backgrounds to keep from totally blowing out the whites, and then try to pull out the backgrounds and dark details on the birds by playing with the curves adjustments in Adobe RAW. The first three shots, where the whites are pretty blocky, were heavily cropped (as the action was near the shore of the islands at 40 Acre Lake) which meant I didn't have a lot of the finer detail. Plus, the jpeg conversion doesn't help much...at least these are my excuses...The full size images do look a little better.

If you get out there early, there aren't that many folks around. But it did start picking up as I was leaving around 9am.

Originally Posted by snidow

Good work Patrick, looks like it was a great trip out shooting.

Thanks Laurie! Even the worst days out to BBSP are still pretty good.

[houtex01]

Very nice Patrick...#4 is that a crawfish or a freshwater shrimp? #5 looks like he was coming right at you...nice closeups on last two...I've got lots of BBSP stuff from last Friday...just need some free time to work on them...

Ron

[Tim T]

Great shots Patrick. I really like #4 & 5. Good work. What metering are you using? I find that spot metering works very good for white birds.

[preames]

Originally Posted by houtex01

Very nice Patrick...#4 is that a crawfish or a freshwater shrimp? #5 looks like he was coming right at you...nice closeups on last two...I've got lots of BBSP stuff from last Friday...just need some free time to work on them...

Ron

Thanks Ron, I believe its a crawfish...I don't even know what a freshwater shrimp would look like. Looking forward to seeing your shots.

Originally Posted by Tim T

Great shots Patrick. I really like #4 & 5. Good work. What metering are you using? I find that spot metering works very good for white birds.

Thanks Tim. It was good seeing you out there again.

I use spot too. It gives a good exposure on the white, but the backgrounds, particularly in the morning light, are pretty dark. I end up bumping the exposure in Adobe Raw to bring out the dark details and use the recovery slider to try to hold the whites back. I also use the curves adjustments to keep the highlights in check.

[SuperJ]

Great shots again Patrick!

[DHaass]

Another nice series Patrick. In particular, I like the sharp head shot on the Great White near the end.

[east_tx]

Patrick,

Looks like you had one heck of a good time. All of these shots are great.

[preames]

Thanks Jeff, Doug and Allen. I do appreciate your comments.