RAW really is best.
15th July 2019
If there’s two birds that epitomise the warm sunny days in southern Europe it’s the Bee Eater and Roller. They both have a tendency to perch out in the open – Bee Eaters are quite easy to approach but Rollers are much more difficult. In the spring in Bulgaria and Romania both these birds often use the same nest sites – excavating holes in sandy bankings. However, when the nesting period is over Bee Eaters tend to stay relatively close to their nest sites, where they hunt flying insects and often perch on the side of the road as you drive by. This can make it relatively easy, if you are careful, to approach them and get a photo. Rollers will never do this, they too will perch besides roads and tracks but as soon as they see you coming, as far away as a hundred yards, they will always fly off. We were driving along a remote dirt track out in steppe – like country when we could see Bee eaters perching on some sticks right by the side of the track, we drove up near to them very slowly, cut the engine and free – wheeled up close. I was able to take one or two shots before they flew off.
As soon as we had passed they landed again – typical behaviour.
Later that day we had stopped on an old disused bridge over a tributary of the main river where we knew there was a Levant Sparrowhawk’s nest. As we were watching these birds flying around, a pair of Kingfishers flew up the river underneath the bridge and in the distance out on the main river a Caspian Tern fished. This was a good area for birds but it was blisteringly hot in the midday sun and typically in the heat, a pair of Rollers were perched in the river – side trees just too far away for a photo – frustrating!
We reluctantly left the site and drove on to have our lunch and something cool to drink and also to escape the heat. After a couple of hours just chilling out we drove to a roadside reed - bed to see if there were any birds on view, typically birds like Great Reed and Savi’s Warbler. Just as we were approaching the area I looked to the side and unbelievably I could see a Roller on a stick just off the road. I asked our guide Dimiter to stop quickly and reverse back slowly and quietly. The Roller was unaware of us and I took a few shots as it was just perched there, after a few seconds it saw us and flew off but it didn’t matter I had it – or so I thought. When I looked at the images on the back of the camera to my horror I could see they were grossly over – exposed.
Below is the RAW image just converted to Tiff with no processing.
On examination of my camera I could see that the exposure compensation dial had obviously turned clockwise, probably with the movement as we drove along, and this had over – exposed the image by three stops – the maximum. I was really upset, you can see Rollers up high on telegraph wires etc. but rarely low down in better light and with no silhouetting. However, I had to move on and be positive and see if I could get a Roller image at some other point on the trip, but deep down I knew this wasn’t going to happen.
After arriving home I was processing the bird images from the trip and I had a look at the Roller shots and they looked really bad, totally washed out. However, I had shot them in RAW and as I moved the exposure sliders I was amazed, the details that looked washed out now began to appear. I was staggered at the amount of detail that was still retained in the image - now I really know why I shoot in RAW!!
If this image had been shot in jpeg it really would have been lost, because those details that allowed me to recover this image would have been deleted automatically by the camera's processor.
I cropped the image in a bit and cloned out the light sky in the top left corner of the image and the straggly twig on the bottom of the main branch.
It was really pleasing to see that all was not lost, it’s not the greatest image – but what a relief!!
As soon as we had passed they landed again – typical behaviour.
Later that day we had stopped on an old disused bridge over a tributary of the main river where we knew there was a Levant Sparrowhawk’s nest. As we were watching these birds flying around, a pair of Kingfishers flew up the river underneath the bridge and in the distance out on the main river a Caspian Tern fished. This was a good area for birds but it was blisteringly hot in the midday sun and typically in the heat, a pair of Rollers were perched in the river – side trees just too far away for a photo – frustrating!
We reluctantly left the site and drove on to have our lunch and something cool to drink and also to escape the heat. After a couple of hours just chilling out we drove to a roadside reed - bed to see if there were any birds on view, typically birds like Great Reed and Savi’s Warbler. Just as we were approaching the area I looked to the side and unbelievably I could see a Roller on a stick just off the road. I asked our guide Dimiter to stop quickly and reverse back slowly and quietly. The Roller was unaware of us and I took a few shots as it was just perched there, after a few seconds it saw us and flew off but it didn’t matter I had it – or so I thought. When I looked at the images on the back of the camera to my horror I could see they were grossly over – exposed.
Below is the RAW image just converted to Tiff with no processing.
On examination of my camera I could see that the exposure compensation dial had obviously turned clockwise, probably with the movement as we drove along, and this had over – exposed the image by three stops – the maximum. I was really upset, you can see Rollers up high on telegraph wires etc. but rarely low down in better light and with no silhouetting. However, I had to move on and be positive and see if I could get a Roller image at some other point on the trip, but deep down I knew this wasn’t going to happen.
After arriving home I was processing the bird images from the trip and I had a look at the Roller shots and they looked really bad, totally washed out. However, I had shot them in RAW and as I moved the exposure sliders I was amazed, the details that looked washed out now began to appear. I was staggered at the amount of detail that was still retained in the image - now I really know why I shoot in RAW!!
If this image had been shot in jpeg it really would have been lost, because those details that allowed me to recover this image would have been deleted automatically by the camera's processor.
I cropped the image in a bit and cloned out the light sky in the top left corner of the image and the straggly twig on the bottom of the main branch.
It was really pleasing to see that all was not lost, it’s not the greatest image – but what a relief!!