Common Merganser

[Lake Trout]

Sorry I'm flooding the site, but I've been putting this off for some time.

[JayinMN]

The birdwatching forum can use a little action sometimes. Great shot.

[Royce Aardahl]

Very nice, I snuck down to one of my crappie spots today and there was a pair there. still kicking myself for leaving the camera at home.

[Steve Foss]

Sweet, Lake Trout! I especially like the water. The textures make a great setting for the merganser.

[buzzsaw]

Nice shot, tough to expose properly in bright light too.

[Lake Trout]

Thanks. These birds are especially hard to expose properly because of the huge contrast between the super white and very dark green. On a number of my other shots, everything came out fine except the eyes blended in with the head color.

[buzzsaw]

Expose for the whites is my motto.

[Steve Foss]

I also expose for the whites in nature photography. Not sure what camera you are using, L.T., but a look at the histogram after taking a test shot allows me to adjust exposure either using exposure compensation available through my camera or by (in steady light conditions) switching to manual exposure and getting it dialed right in.

Shooting RAW, I'll even allow the whites to be just a little blown out by adjusting settings so the histogram is far to the right, and so I don't mind a few small "blinkies" on the histogram indicating blown out areas, because I can recover those when opening the RAW image.

If shooting JPEG, I move the histogram as far to the right as I can without getting blinkies and then I know the whites will be good and I'll have as much detail as possible in the shadows.

Sorry if you already know all this, L.T.

[buzzsaw]

Steve nailed all the details on the head... I gave you the short answer, he gave you the sensei version.

[Steve Foss]

Wax on, wax off.

[Lake Trout]

Thanks for the info, guys. I am shooting a Nikon D40 and am just getting used to a digital SLR after having a 35mm film SLR for many, many years...

[Paul]

Lake Trout, I hear ya on switching from film to digital. I almost had to relearn most of what I had learned before plus a lot more with invention of the histogram like Steve said. I love the histogram. YOu are doing good so far from what I have seen. keep up the good work.

[Lake Trout]

Again, I appreciate the comments and suggestions on my shots. It's kind of funny though, I thought my other photos would have had more comments and I hesitated putting the Common Merganser photo in the forum. Goes to show that you don't always know what the people will like!