Friday, July 5, 2019

White crowned sparrows – compensating for back lighting.

White crowned sparrow on a favourite perch.
The white crowned sparrow is a common summertime visitor to Western and much of Northern Canada.  I hear its familiar chirping and see its telltale black and white striped crown on many of my travels.  I spotted this one yesterday near the beach in southeast Washington.  They feed on the ground, taking both seeds and insects.  It is amazing to watch them moving leaf litter; with both feet planted on the offending target, they hurl it backward with a synchronized jerk, unlodging any morsels hiding underneath.

They are not terribly shy.  I often find them perching atop tall plants or trees surveying their kingdom.  Photographing them in this position is often problematic because of backlighting.  Backlighting happens when the background is brighter than the light coming off the subject.  This causes the camera to underexpose the image, leading to a flat, gray background with a dark foreground.  The solution is to compensate for this.  There are three quick methods.

1)  Use exposure compensation.  The +/- button is your exposure compensation button.  Most cameras will have access to this feature either directly through a button, or indirectly through a menu option.  When pressing the button and holding onto it, you can add to or subtract from an exposure by rotating the command dial at the same time.  Some cameras may allow you to press and release the exposure compensation button and then change the setting, then press it again to go back into shooting mode.  The challenge is twofold; first, you have to estimate how much you want to compensate the exposure by.  I find many backlit situations benefit from a +1 setting, although I have gone past +2 on some occasions.  The other issue is forgetting to turn it off after using it.

2)  Use exposure lock.  This handy little feature is often found as a button with EL or FL written on it, allows you to lock your exposure at a predetermined value.  In the case of the sparrow above, lowering the camera so there is little backlighting and holding the button will lock the exposure in.  Reframing you then take the picture.  This has the advantage of not having to estimate what value to use, and it turns off automatically.  This sounds marvelously magical, but the issue is finding an area with lighting similar to the one your subject is in.  This can be a bit of a hunt-and-find methodology.  I pay attention to my viewfinder exposure settings when using this and keep in mind how much extra exposure I need.  If you are not familiar with shutter and aperture values, this makes finding the right balance more difficult.

3)  Using manual exposure mode.  Most people are uncomfortable with manual exposure mode.  In fact, many will set their cameras to full auto or intelligent auto and leave it there.  Although intimidating, manual mode will unlock the potential of your camera if you know how to use it.  There is a steep learning curve, as some knowledge of aperture and shutter speed settings is mandatory, and you have to be comfortable working with changing both those settings manually.  I photographed the white crown sparrow above in manual mode.  The light of the day was unvarying; this meant that I could use the same exposure settings for all my shots unless something changed significantly.  With the flat grey cloud cover, the exposures were consistent.  Also, I use RAW files instead of jpegs, which means I have extra latitude for correction if the exposure is off.  Together they allow me to capture my images with relatively few corrections.

Whichever method you use, compensating for backlighting will improve your photos immensely, especially when shooting jpegs instead of RAW.

Monday, July 1, 2019

Yellow bellied sapsucker

Yellow bellied sapsucker near Chehalis, Washington
One of the reasons I encourage photographers to travel is because there is a myriad of new things and experiences to enjoy.  You don't have to go far, but the benefit of greater distance is an increased chance something unfamiliar will appear.  Birding is a good example of this.  Around my house, there are maybe fifty species of birds, but on any one day, I may see only five or six.  Most of those are the same ones I see each day.  Robins, towhees, crows, juncos, chickadees and song sparrows are the most frequent.  If I travel a few miles from home I stand a better chance of seeing something slightly different.  Herons, blackbirds, eagles, kingfishers, ravens, and pigeons are all frequent sightings.

Out of the city towards the more rural areas less familiar birds start to appear.  Yellow rumped warblers, green herons, golden crowned kinglets, varied thrushes, and red breasted sapsuckers start to show up.  I have seen some of these around my house, but rarely.  The chance of seeing one of these on any day is remote.  So, by traveling modest to significant distances from home, there is a good probability that I will come across something unusual.  It may be commonplace for locals, but for me, it is new and exciting.

At this moment we are camping in Chehalis, Washington.  I go on walks every day; some of them are significant treks.  I have seen a variety of birds, many of them familiar.  Given the fact that I am in the same temperate rainforest with much of the same vegetation as I have at home, I am not too surprised.  However, I came across a yellow bellied sapsucker the other day.  I have never seen that bird at home at all and only ever seen one once before.  The one I came across was a juvenile and did not have its full adult markings.  Still though, it was an exciting moment.

I did not have my DSLR camera with me, as I was shooting insects at the time.  I did, however, have my bridge camera; a Panasonic FZ2500 with a 460 mm (relative) zoom lens.  It actually does a pretty good job given its small sensor, and I managed to capture a dozen or so images before the bird flit off to hunt for a meal elsewhere.  Of those, the best one was the one I chose above.  It required significant cropping and some sharpening before it was useable.  It helped me identify the species, as I was not originally sure what I had just photographed.

I have seen a few other species since then.  I photographed a scrub jay and shot an excellent image of a song sparrow with a beak full of squirming bugs.  We will be leaving in two days, and I hope to come across some other unusual finds before we go.  Better though, we are heading for south Washington's coast where I hope to hit the avian jackpot.  I'll let you know.

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com