Answering your photography questions #1
Q: I keep blowing out the sky when photographing birds, how can I solve this?
This is a question I’ve had a few times, both in person during workshops and part of online presentations. It’s a pretty common issue if you spend a lot of time photographing birds, particularly birds in flight as they fly overhead.
As with almost anything in photography the exact answer is “hmm it depends on the shooting situation, what’s the light doing…”. BUT usually this is a problem encountered when trying to snap a bird as it flies directly overhead. Depending on how you are shooting, in manual mode, or a semi-auto mode with different styles of metering (such as aperture or shutter priority), you’ll either end up with a bird with lots of detail and a blown out sky, or a silhouette of a bird and colour/detail in the sky.
Now I know which of these results I would prefer but I think we’re so often preached at about capturing as much detail as possible that as soon as we clip the highlights, or lose shadows, the instinct is too panic or think we as the photographer have done something incorrect. The simple answer to this question in my opinion is why are you concerned about blowing out the sky, or losing detail in a portion of the image?
The key to any photograph, whether it is wildlife, landscapes, macro or commercial, is to identify your subject. In this example our subject is a bird, and therefore should take priority in all our decisions from focus and composition, to the final exposure. With that in mind, my question is why should I care if there is no detail in the sky behind the bird? It is not my subject.
To return to the original question, and for arguments sake, say I did want to retain detail in the sky, I’d be faced with a choice. In order to retain the highlight detail I’d need to underexpose the photograph (if by underexposure I talk about the relative light and detail of the bird) and end up silhouetting the bird. In post-production the shadows and detail in the bird could then be lifted with a bit of work. However, this can be surprisingly tricky to get a result that looks natural, and also deal with the digital noise that springs up as a result of raising the shadows. In all, to me at least, you’ll end up with a worse result. In essence, by not worrying about the sky we end shooting in a high-key style. Bright, airy and with a natural isolation of the key subject.
The only situation I’d reverse this is if I was intending to capture a silhouette. When, and if, I opt for this style depends on a few factors such as position of the bird, colour in the sky etc. The key to a successful silhouette, just as with the high-key style, is not to be afraid of the result. Darken the exposure of the image by a couple of stops at least in instances such as this (the exact amount will of course depend on the lighting scenario) - but if your intention is for a silhouette then make sure you go for it and make it deliberate. If I’m shooting this way because of colour in the sky I also want to really make sure I’m capturing as much of that as possible so ensure to double-check the RBG histogram in your electronic viewfinder, or in playback on the camera screen.
Takeaways: If shooting up into the sky don’t be afraid of the image appearing too bright. Concentrate on the exposure of your subject, the bird, and forget about the rest. The bird is the important part of the image. If you’re intended result is a silhouette however then aim to darken the image by a couple of stops to retain colour detail in the sky.
