In looking for images for the Finches competition I had lot of images of Red-browed Finches but the red in the eye-brow was blown out. I have had this issue with a number of red birds which has ruined some lovely shots otherwise. Any advice on how to avoid this would be appreciated.

Hello Rodney,

It is a problem we all face with all brands of camera. The camera works out the exposure on the assumption that your bird is something like a 18% neutral grey and does not take account of the colours. Camera sensors are particularly sensitive to red light so they invariably overexpose the red when they meter your bird as if it was a neutral grey object. The only way I know to manage this situation is use your previous experience when in the field and remember to deliberately under-expose birds with bright red parts by about 1 stop. Common examples are the 'red' robins and your finch. It will also be an issue with birds having bright yellow parts such as Eastern Yellow Robin because the red channel is strong in bright yellow tones.

Cheers, Ian

Rodney, it might also be possible to recover the reds from the RAW file, assuming you are shooting in this mode. To achieve recovery, you'll need to use your RAW processing to do a combination of reducing the exposure, reducing highlights and moving the white point further to the right until you are able to see good detail in the red areas and the red channel isn't blown. You'll then need to take the resultant output image and recover a more acceptable tonal range and contrast in the rest of the photo by using selections or selectively editing parts of the photo in Photoshop or similar. Don't forget to keep the photo looking natural in the process as it can be easy to over-do it. If you're unable to recover acceptable detail in the reds at the initial RAW processing stage, the shot is probably unrecoverable.

I will have to remember to do this in my excitement of seeing some of the Robins . Thank you for the advice.

I only shoot in RAW so that art is OK. There are a few images that are probably worth playing around with. I have been lazy and just tried doing it Lightroom so a more targeted approach in Photoshop is the go. Thanks.

No reason Lightroom won't do the job either but you will need to make selective adjustments to the rest of the image if you are able to recover the reds.