As mentioned in my Whio/Blue Duck duckling post the trigger for this trip was a weather forecast that promised flat light. This is my preferred light to photograph birds but is also essential for achieving what I look for in my long term series of Birds on White images.

Working in manual exposure mode is essential when photographing birds in flight and is my exposure mode 99% of the time. For high key images “overexposing” a grey sky background by around 2 stops pushes it to white and achieves the correct exposure for the subject.

Keeping an eye on the histogram can help ensure the exposure is correct and I use the “blinky” display as my default. I am quite happy to have the background flashing at me warning of “overexposure” as long as the bird subject is not flashing. There is plenty of exposure latitude with modern sensors so I am happy to tolerate a flashing white bib on a Tui.

Photos with Nikon D850 and Nikon 500mm f5.6PF