Ringed Plovers at Davidstow

These shots of Ringed Plover were taken last week on Davidstow Airfield. A new laptop and Nikon Capture NX2 software has now enabled me to take shots in RAW. Several people in the know have recommended RAW but you do need the most powerful pc available to use the program properly. That said, my 4 gig ram Packard Bell is still struggling to cope with the 22 meg files.

I can see the difference in the quality of the final image compared to the previous JPEG Files. The beauty of RAW of course is that you can make some drastic alterations to exposure and white balance afterwards. In a nutshell, as long as the image is in sharp focus, you can recorrect every mistake to make a poor shot look reasonable.

The light was really poor when I took these shots, varying from low mist to bursts of sunshine. The original dull shots were barely acceptable though the exposure has been tweaked upwards to yield some fair results.

The photos were taken with a 600mm F/4 with a 1.4x Teleconverter from the car window. Original EXIF detail is: Focal length: 840mm, Shutter speed 1/800s, ISO 640, WB Cloudy, Exposure -0.7EV, Aperture F/7.1.