Swan In The Sun

I took this photo on the recent wildlife photo shoot. I was quite impressed with how this photo came out, it is defiantly one of my favourite photos from the day. The sun was beaming down which made some very interesting exposure problems. The best way I thought to combat the exposure difficulties was by using my flash gun. I thought by using the flash gun it would help to lighten the shadow areas and to even the exposure.

I was using the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/400^th of a second selected. I had also locked in an ISO of ISO400. As I was using the flash gun the camera selected an aperture of F13. I programmed the flash gun to over expose by three stops; so that it would give out the largest amount of power for the exposure. As I was using a shutter speed faster than the flash-sync’ speed of the camera I had to use the flash n the high speed sync’ mode. This mode sends out a rapid sequence of flashes so that at least one of the flashes happens while the shutter is open. The only downside of using the high speed sync’ function is that it uses the entire charge of the flash gun; so that only one photo can be taken at a time!

To edit the photo I increased the brightness a bit and lowered the highlights to ensure the highlights didn’t become clipped. I also cropped out some reeds that I had accidently included into the frame. After this I changed the white balance for a more accurate colour selection. I changed the white balance as the photo looked a bit too cool for my liking. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with the rest of the photo.

I very much enjoyed my wildlife photography trip, I’m very pleased with the photos that I took. Hopefully both Bex and I will get a chance for some more photography this weekend.

Mat