{"id":116008,"date":"2022-08-06T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-08-06T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=116008"},"modified":"2022-08-06T08:10:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T14:10:53","slug":"rim-lighting-in-bird-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/06\/rim-lighting-in-bird-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Rim Lighting In Bird Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several photos I’ve taken recently have me rethinking one of my old habits.<\/p>\n

Rim lighting is when the ‘rim’ or outline of the subject is brightly lit while the rest of the subject is more poorly lit and shows significantly less detail, sometimes none at all. Rim lighting is achieved when the subject is back lit and it helps to separate the subject from the background, especially when the background and subject are similarly colored. Rim lighting tends to make an image more dramatic.<\/p>\n

Since in nature photography rim lighting requires the subject to be back lit, it’s a technique I don’t deliberately use because I’ve always instinctively tried to avoid back light when photographing birds. Typically, when I encounter a back lit bird, I don’t even aim my lens its way unless I can maneuver myself into a position that ‘improves’ my lighting angle.<\/p>\n

But a few photos I’ve taken recently have me rethinking my position.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/5.6, ISO 1600, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This is one of them. I photographed this presumed female Short-eared Owl a couple of weeks ago while she was watching over one of her recent fledglings<\/a><\/span><\/span> that was perched on a woodpile below and in front of her. She was strongly back lit by the early morning sun which highlighted her ‘fuzzy edges’ while keeping the rest of her body, and the perch, in shade. That’s rim lighting.<\/p>\n

As the image came out of the camera there was very little detail in her plumage, even her bright eyes were hard to see, and that didn’t appeal to me at all. But something made me play with the image during processing to see what I’d end up with. All I did was slightly increase exposure in the shadows (I did it selectively on the bird only) and for me that made all the difference.<\/p>\n

Now there was more detail in her plumage, her eyes were much easier to see, and the rim lighting effect was unchanged and still dramatic. The photo was transformed from one I’d typically delete to one that’s at least growing on me and making me rethink my tendency to avoid photographing back lit birds.<\/p>\n

Where I’ll end up with this I don’t know, but I do know this. In the near future at least, when I see a back-lit bird I’m going to give it a chance. After all, studio photographers often go to great lengths, and expense in lighting equipment, to achieve rim lighting so why should I dismiss it out of hand?<\/p>\n

Maybe I’ll decide that rim lighting doesn’t do much for me so I’ll go back to my old ways. Or maybe this old dog will learn a new trick.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several photos I’ve taken recently have me rethinking one of my old habits.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,334,356],"tags":[35,6476,1940,4630,6475,279,311],"class_list":["post-116008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-short-eared-owls","tag-asio-flammeus","tag-back-light","tag-bird-photography-technique","tag-photo-processing","tag-rim-lighting","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/short-eared-owl-8191-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-ub6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116008"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116072,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116008\/revisions\/116072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}