American Black Vulture

Gallery: AvianPosted February 10, 2011176 views14 comments

Canon EOS REBEL T2i
EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
2/10/2011 – 1:16:13 PM (see below)
1/50 sec
Aperture priority
Exposure compensation +1 (see below)
f/11
ISO 400
Focal length 250 mm
Tripod
Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge, 7 miles north of Deland, Florida
Raw file processed in PSE9, full frame, see below for details

Immature American Black Vulture, I think. I spent an hour or so of quality time with a bunch of these birds today. They appeared to be very curious about me. I was sitting on the ground and ended up with them all around me, some coming toward me from further away on the ground and then others flying in to join them.

The day was gray, rainy off and on, and cool, and because of the grayness I used exposure compensation, but I think that made it end up overexposed. I have a bunch of images. Some close-up shots are sharper than this one but have birds directly behind the subject bird. This one had part of a bird in the upper left, not close to the subject bird, which I cloned out. I did not use the Clarity slider in the raw file processing. I did do noise removal. As far as I know all the tiny white spots you see are actually on the bird.

All feedback and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Comments

14 comments

Comment posted by Robert Holguin on February 11, 2011 at 2:02 AM

Excellent pic. I think you exposed the bird nicely. Great feather detail. This might just be me but I think its a tad over sharpened. Other than amazing pic. Well done.

Registered on January 25, 2011, 44 Posts, 294 Comments

Comment posted by Mauro Pasquero on February 11, 2011 at 6:28 AM

Very good portrait of this volture, Barbara. You' ve got a very good detail in spite of a difficult exposure situation because of the dark colors of the bird.
May be you can step back the sharpening a bit.
Mauro

Registered on January 21, 2010, 650 Posts, 2500 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on February 11, 2011 at 7:43 AM

Barbara, I like your DOF on the face and bill. The bill tip almost seems to poke out of my screen in the larger version. An interesting and intimate perspective that I enjoy.

Registered on March 30, 2007, 437 Posts, 10915 Comments

Comment posted by Peter May on February 11, 2011 at 8:41 AM

I like this shot a lot, Barbara. It shows some of the personality of this bird. The Woodruff vultures are quite interesting to spend time with. As you found, they are quite tame, and some even seem friendly. I was at the roost a couple of weeks ago with some friends from North Carolina, and they were amazed at how sociable and inquisitive the birds were.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 7 Posts, 239 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on February 11, 2011 at 8:56 AM

Hi Barbara. Looks like you have a nice shot here. Nice details. Maybe a touch over sharpened? Not sure why you chose +1 because of the gray rainy day. Your camera meter already sees the light. If anything with a dark subject (if if occupies a significant part of the scene that you are allowing the meter to see) will require negative exposure compensation. For this scene it looks fine, just wanted to throw that out because of your comment. You're doing great.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by richard remington on February 11, 2011 at 9:04 AM

Barbara,
Great detail on the small head feathers and the lighting looks like it was perfect. Great work!

Rick

Registered on March 12, 2010, 105 Posts, 368 Comments

Comment posted by Dan Moore on February 11, 2011 at 9:23 AM

Very nice image Barbara! Well done all the way round. Love the head position.

Dan

Registered on February 11, 2010, 143 Posts, 1248 Comments

Comment posted by Wayne Rhodus on February 11, 2011 at 9:32 AM

Barbara, when you mentioned a +1 EC I was surprised because of your black subject but in looking at the image the exposure seems to be quite good. Maybe you used matrix metering here but in any event I really like this portrait. Well done!

Registered on November 16, 2003, 157 Posts, 3326 Comments

Comment posted by Maurizio De Vita on February 11, 2011 at 2:06 PM

A difficult exposure with all those blacks and dark tones, really well realized. I particularly like the clear bright eye. It seems on the point of asking something… Agree with the others about a touch of over-sharpening. Just as a matter of taste, I would try to crop a little bit from the left and top to give more prominence to the eye. I like the great sense of confidence this picture inspires. Well done!

Registered on August 26, 2008, 11 Posts, 66 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on February 11, 2011 at 4:22 PM

neat pose with a nice 3D feel to it, Barbara. I agree about perhaps taking a little off the left/top.

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Wayne Willison on February 11, 2011 at 5:16 PM

Barbara, this is cool. Nice work. A real sense of dimension here. Been shooting these guys lately, also. Very interesting birds.

Registered on April 10, 2009, 292 Posts, 3967 Comments

Comment posted by Michael Lotito on February 11, 2011 at 9:02 PM

Excellent exposure. I really love the black detail. Nicely done!

Registered on June 26, 2009, 181 Posts, 1558 Comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on February 12, 2011 at 10:54 AM

Thank you very much for the comments, everyone. Regarding the exposure, my (faulty) reasoning was that someone suggested when I was working on white birds a negative exposure compensation, so I thought maybe the opposite was true of a black bird. I didn't even know until I got home and was looking to see the correct name of this bird that black birds are also hard to get detail with. I plan to spend a few hours today studying all the material I have to try to get some understanding of exposure.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments

Comment posted by Monica Siri on February 12, 2011 at 1:20 PM

Neat portrait, Barbara. Like it

Registered on September 20, 2009, 132 Posts, 3764 Comments