Bufflehead - Assateague Island, Assateague State Park, Berlin, Maryland
A couple dozen Bufflehead where feeding on the island side of the bridge, and I was just beginning to make some halfway decent captures as they came closer and closer to my car, when a concerned ranger asked me to leave for my own safety. There had only been 3 or 4 cars that had passed in the hour I was there, but I figured he knew best and did as I was told. And then there was that pesky "No Stopping or Standing" sign, but I figure that only applies in the summer when there's actual traffic. :{)
I considered parking the car at the visitor center parking lot, and walking the half mile back to the bridge, but figured these guys and their Bufflehead buddies wouldn't come anywhere near me if I were sitting exposed on the bank. :{(
Exposure and processing tips:
I got my light reading off the white head to get a proper exposure, but even so I had to do multiple raw processing’s (one for the white and a second for the blacks) to compress the full range (captured by the sensor) down to the more limited capability of computer screens.
Papers have a wider dynamic range than monitors,
so a second processing with less compression would be required to make a quality print.
Note: In cases where the Bufflehead is too far away to get a spot reading off its white head,
1 to 2 stops under is the way to go to get detail in the whites,
but even then it’s a good idea to autobracket these guys to cover all possibilities.
And in extreme cases I sometimes steal from the outside edges of a bracket
to get missing detail when the dynamic range of the subject exceeds the capability of the sensor.
Ansell Adams used to deal with dynamic range problems in his B&W images by adjusting his exposure and negative processing to compress (or expand) the dynamic range of his subject to match his medium (in his case, paper). But different strategies are required with digital gear,
and sadly his chemical approach was/is not possible with color film. :{(
Lucky for us, previsualization (i.e. knowing exactly what you're doing before you do it), is no longer required so long as you capture all the necessay information when you make your original capture(s).
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