Flying kite - can't seem to get the light right

[v8benji]

I quite like this picture but it;s the best of a batch of teh same bird, but all of them seem to lose a bit around the edges - how does anybody get around this to get a cleaner edge where it goes from a dark subject to a bright background - without losing definition on the subject itself?

Thanks in advance - Ben

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IMG_1918 by v8benji, on Flickr

[digitalfingers]

For me personally when shooting flying birds against the sky, I set the camera to auto ISO so it compensates for the correct light and dark areas. Have the camera set on AF-Continuous for sharper focus and put your metering on matrix.

[Troy]

You'll also want to be aware of the serious chomatic aberration you have on this shot. It's unavoidable in some situations, but a little touch up in post production can get rid of it. From a quick scan i can see some green on the right of the wing and purple on the left.

[v8benji]

Thanks Troy - is there an easy way to get rid of it? or just a case of using a brush tool?

Thanks

[Troy]

I've found if you head to the hue/saturation tool and select the magenta colour, then simply slide the saturation bar down, removing all of the purple from the shot. Then repeat this with the green, followed by using a heal/clone tool to clean it up.

This doesn't work when there are other aread of purple/green in the image, but for this shot it should do the trick.

[Richampton]

I use Troys method quite often but yes just be aware that it will affect the colour in your entire image. To get around this if you are using Photoshop or later versions of Elements is to do this on a duplicated layer of your original image, and then apply a layer mask to only effect the edges where the chromatic abberation is present

Another method I use to remove Chromatic Abberation in Photoshop / Elements is to duplicate the background layer, apply a gaussian blur of between 5-15pixels on this new layer (depending on your image you will need to play about with the value here) and then change the blending mode of this layer to colour, and this can help fix things effectively. You can then use a layer mask if you want more precise adjustments

Hope this helps

[ALwin]

Hi Ben,

I saw your post earlier and until today I had forgotten about a trick I learned for getting a good exposure when your lens is pointed towards an object which is in front of a bright background (i.e. a a dark feathered bird flying in the sky).

Ok this may sound obvious, but you need to use a speedlight (e.g. Nikon SB-900 or Canon 580EX) and a fast telephoto lens (if the bird a certain distance away). But not just a simple speedlight, you need to equip it with a flash extender. A flash extender is basically 2 pieces of plastic or metal or cardboard (if homemade) that attaches to the sides of the lens and allows a small rectangular piece of fresnel lens to be placed in front of the speedlight. What it does is extend the range of your flash by a few meters and focusing the light so that it seems to be 2-3 stops brighter.

When using this, you also need to set the speedlight to manual, not TTL. The stronger the light output of the speedlight, the longer it should reach.

You can buy one from Better Beamer here http://www.naturescapes.net/store/bette ... extenders/ or a DIY guide here http://blog.bahneman.com/diy_flash_extender

Otherwise, it will be very difficult to try and get a good exposure. The difference in stops between the bright sky and the dark feathers of the birds will be too much. If you expose for the sky, the bird will be dark. If you expose for the bird, the sky will be way overblown. Setting the camera to Auto-ISO will not help.

As for the color fringing, getting a good exposure will help reduce them. Another thing, use a polarizer.