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Imperial Shag

It was a bleak morning on Bleaker Island in the Falklands. However, if you like photographing birds, then the Falklands is a great location no matter what the weather is like, although transport from island to island isn’t without its challenges. Although there are small airfields dotted around, most people visit as part of an expedition ship and I was no exception, travelling with Peregrine Adventures.

Where we landed on Bleaker Island was home to two colonies of birds, Rockhopper Penguins and the Imperial Shag. The weather was cold, overcast and very windy. We even had a couple of snow showers pass over which was great for atmosphere, but not particularly helpful for photography.

As usual, there were strict rules as to how close we could get to the birds and our group was strung out along a fence line. It was hard to know what the island was like in fairer weather, but I have no doubt it would be very picturesque!

At the end of the fence was a colony of shags who used a stretch of land just in front of us as a runway. The birds would gather speed and throw themselves into the wind and out to sea. It was a perfect location for shooting the Imperial Shag on the wing, but I confess to shooting several hundred frames of which only a couple were satisfactory.

And then, of course, there was the unsatisfactory nature of the light. It was dull and lifeless, so I figured this was a time I could use Capture One to breathe in some colour and excitement!

The first adjustments made in Capture One were to crop the image so the bird was positioned in the centre of the frame, rather than on the left side. I’d actually prefer there to be a little more room on the left than I have – and that could be easily arranged later in Photoshop. I also adjusted the exposure and contrast to produce as much detail in the shag as possible, being mindful that its white and dark feathers had to be carefully managed.

In this way, the Imperial Shag is natural and honest. This is what I saw. Now, I may get into trouble with the purists for the next few steps!

My first Local Adjustment layer darkens down the sky, with a soft edge brush just above the bird.

I then repeated this with a second Local Adjustment layer, but I positioned the adjustment brush a little higher. I find two or more small adjustments usually produce a better result than one larger adjustment.

Then I added my third Local Adjustment layer and lightened the eye and surrounding feathers. From other photographs I have seen of the Imperial Shag, I think these colours are reasonably realistic – I haven’t added in any colour saturation, just increased the contrast and exposure appropriately.

The fourth Local Adjustment Layer darkens down the top and right hand edges a little more to contain the eye – some people will like this vignetting, others will not. I like it! And at this stage, I stopped, because I figured I couldn’t get into too much trouble for the adjustments I had made. However, the image still lacks a little punch…

So I couldn’t help myself! The final Local Adjustment layer reduces the background exposure and increases the colour saturation, which brings up the colour in the blurred grasses in the background and further darkens the sky. I have masked the shag so that its colours and exposure are not affected and I’m quite happy with the result!

If you’d like to see in more detail how I worked on this file, you can access a short video on the Better Photography website by clicking here.

Peter Eastway is a professional photographer and photography magazine publisher based in Sydney, Australia. To see more of his photography, visit http://www.petereastway.com/. Peter also offers an online Landscape Photography MasterClass. Details can be found at http://www.betterphotography.com/.

Gentoo Penguin

Carcass Island in the Falklands is owned by Rob McGill. It’s tiny and, if you can get there, accommodation is in the owner’s house and meals are taken with the family. This isn’t at all surprising as there are no streets, shops or other amenities – and that is undoubtedly the attraction.

We disembarked at Carcass Island as part of our Peregrine Expedition through the Falklands, South Georgia Island and Antarctica. It was only a whistle-stop in the afternoon with just enough time to walk across the isthmus to the windward side. Here we saw Magellanic penguins, but it wasn’t until I returned to the beach on the lee of the island that I met lots of Gentoo penguins.

Walking along the beach, we looked down at the penguins who barely acknowledged our presence. One of the highlights of visiting these remote locations is that the wildlife are relatively unafraid of humans. However, a human perspective creates a relatively boring camera angle. One of the best angles for a penguin is around penguin height, so I lay down on my stomach and put my camera to my eye.

The issue on this day was the wind-blown sand which added to the atmosphere in the photographs, but worried me a little as I had several weeks left and I didn’t want to lose a camera due to mechanical failure! However, I needn’t have worried as the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and 300mm f2.8 telephoto had sufficient weather-proofing to handle the little breeze on Carcass Island!

As always, time is short. You are always balancing your opportunities: do I stay here longer and hope to get an even better photograph, or do I move on and hope to discover something else?

Back on board the Akademik Sergey Vavilov, I would look through my files for an image with a difference. Everyone had great photographs of penguins (although using a telephoto with the lens wide-open at f2.8 helped to create a slightly different look to a compact camera), so I was relying on my subjects to provide the sparkle!

I’m not sure how you view and edit your photographs, but I really like to start with a file that is precisely focused. It annoys me when my focus is slightly out and although you can try to salvage it with unsharp masking techniques, nothing beats an image that is focused correctly in the first place.

However, enlarging each image in turn to see if it is sharp around the eyes takes time. It’s not slow if you have a fast computer, but it’s time consuming nevertheless. This is where Capture One Pro 6 really helps. Turning on its Focus Mask feature, Capture One colours areas of sharp focus with a green mask (you can change the colour of the mask to any colour you like). This allows you to instantly recognise if a photograph is sharp or not.

For instance, with the series of a Gentoo penguin making a call, I could tell instantly if my subject was in sharp focus or not.

Of course, if you have several great shots, it then becomes a matter of which one do you use? I felt I had two contenders – one with the Gentoo’s head back and beak open, a second with the head thrust forward but the beak closed. I’m still not sure which one is the best…

The original raw files were quite acceptable, but lacking a little in contrast and colour. Fixing them was very straightforward using Capture One. If you’d like to see how I worked on this file, you can access a short video on the Better Photography website here.

See all the images Peter chose here

Black-Browed Albatross

NOTE: This article discusses an outdated version of Capture One. To learn more about our latest version, click here.

Learn how the pro photographer Peter Eastway uses Capture One Filmstrip Viewer to quickly find the best shot of an albatross passing by the Falkland Islands. See for yourself:

http://www.betterphotography.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=565:albatross-west-point-island&catid=68:capture-one-processing&Itemid=153

EIP File Format – Enhanced Image Package

With Capture One, you have the unique option of moving your image folders including all necessary information to other computers.

If you only want to move a single file to another computer, you have a simpler possibility which is to use Capture One’s .EIP file format. The .EIP file format packs your original RAW file with all necessary settings files including LCC files and custom ICC profiles into one file.

The .EIP file format doesn’t change your RAW files; it simply uses standardized zipping technology to pack all needed components into one file:

The possibility of moving just a few selected images including all necessary components to another computer can be a great advantage in your workflow. Many photographers use laptops for shooting tethered with their camera and they often do a few adjustments upfront directly at the laptop. When they have selected the images they want to continue working with, they move them to a desktop computer with a high quality monitor.

Even though Capture One can use the .EIP format directly during import or capture, I always keep my files in the manufacturer’s RAW format until I need to move them. Then I just pack the images into the .EIP file format.

From the file menu, you can select the “Pack as EIP” to pack your RAW file including all necessary settings files into one single .EIP file.

After moving the .EIP file to another computer, you can simply use Capture One and browse to the location of the .EIP file. Capture One will display it with the identical settings as on the laptop where it was originally generated. You can keep the image file in the .EIP format or, if you want to see the original file format of the camera, you can simply unpack the .EIP file with Capture One. During the unpacking, all the needed components are installed correctly in Capture One.