Nikon D7100 – The Rusty Ruin Journal

Some years back, I remember making photos of an Australian White Ibis – a wading bird that’s native to the country. It was a very sunny day and there was lots of light and shadow. In other words: lots of dynamic range for the camera to manage. Fortunately, the Nikon D7100 manages dynamic range pretty well and still stands up as a solid crop sensor camera today.

By my own admission, I was rushing and didn’t choose settings carefully enough. Here’s what the original photo looks like:

*Australian White Ibis (original) – Nikon D7100*

You can see how much dynamic range is in the photo – the feathers are bright white in the sun, and the interesting part of the photo – the head of the bird – is mostly in shadow. I probably should have switched to Spot Metering and focussed on the head of the Ibis to lift those shadows and preserve detail. That would also have blown out more of the bright parts of the feathers, so there’s a choice to be made. The other option is using a tripod and bracketing the shots to find a better exposure or stack them for an HDR edit to preserve as much dynamic range as possible. But it’s a living creature, and messing around with settings is not always ideal.

I had a stab at editing this old photo in Lightroom to see what could be done with it:

As you can see above, I was able to pull an impressive amount of detail from the Shadows. Despite the feathers looking blown out, I was also able to recover a lot of detail by pulling down the Highlights. I cropped to a 16:9 ratio to emphasise the length of the Ibis and the beak. Cropping out part of the highlights on the feathers brings more attention to the head of the bird and lessens the visual distraction of the bright white. I think it also balances the serpentine curves of the Ibis as the eye is drawn up the body, over the head, and down the beak.

I masked the background out and made the exposure, shadow and highlight adjustments seperately on the Ibis. By using a mask like this, my edits didn’t affect the background at all, and enabled me to duplicate and invert the mask and then alter the hue of the background through a colour dropper selection. Additionally, I applied a colour mask to the head of the Ibis and raised the exposure slightly, just to bring out even more detail. Finally, I converted to black and white and then applied a global colour in the Split Toning panel to create the cyan look. This is a simple way of emphasising texture and tone, and hiding stuff like chromatic aberrations or visually distacting colours.

Hong Kong offers a feast of sights for those with camera in hand. Spending all day carrying the Nikon D7100 and an attached 55-300mm DX lens – since sold and replaced by the old 70-300mm ED VR lens – is not exactly the lightest task. As with most Nikon cameras, the D7100 is solid and conveys a sense of trust and comfort. Whilst not the best telephoto lens available, the 55-300mm is certainly one of the least heavy in this class, even though the image is prone to softness, especially at the long end below f8.

*The old walls have a face in Hong Kong – Nikon D7100 and 55-300mm lens*

Before I purchased the D7100, I was using the Nikon D5100 – a truly capable camera with the well-reviewed sensor found in the Nikon D7000, though much cheaper. I really liked the D5100 but moving to the D7100 felt as though I was really moving on up in terms of features and ergonomics. Just the external buttons alone gave me easy access to ISO and White Balance – two dedicated buttons the D5100 didn’t have.

As much as I was tempted to sell the D7100 when buying into the Z system with the Nikon Z5, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I do miss the old Nikkor 50mm f1.8 D lens though, as it’s so light, small, and sharp. It’s a reliable camera and mine has a lot of life left in it.

*The old walls have personality in Hong Kong – Nikon D7100*

Years of grime, torn stickers, puckered adhesive, PVC pipes, and crazy wires that lead to subterranean places adorn the walls in many parts of Hong Kong. I love the texture of the place, the hustle and bustle, and the sea of humanity. But I’m not unaware of the poverty and the cramped lives, struggling to get through each day in the wet heat. And here I am, a tourist with a big camera, framing it all up and editing in a quiet room…

Tag: Nikon D7100

A photo edit ~ the original versus the edited version ~ musings on cropping, shadow recovery, exposure, and masking.

Scenes in yellow on a cloudy day