Congratulations to sum1sgrampa for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 15 votes - View Previous Winners
Just a preference.
For any beginners who may be reading this, the effect is very simple to achieve. You just need a background a bit darker than your subject. You need your subject front lit. And most importantly you need to expose for the subject and let the background fall off to dark. Some of these backgrounds are almost pure black as shot but when I run the Raw file through DxO they lighten up more than I would like so it takes some work to get them back.
NIKON D500490mmf/6.31/320s2000 ISO-1.0 EV
NIKON Z 9NIKKOR Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S Z TC-1.4x lens560mmf/6.31/8000s250 ISO-1.7 EV
NIKON D500390mmf/6.31/800s1250 ISO-2.3 EV
NIKON Z 9VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G lens600mmf/6.31/5000s400 ISO-1.0 EV
NIKON Z 9VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G lens300mmf/5.61/2500s640 ISO0.0 EV
NIKON Z 9NIKKOR Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR lens550mmf/6.31/2000s8000 ISO-2.3 EV
NIKON Z 9VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G lens600mmf/6.31/4000s1600 ISO-1.0 EV
NIKON D500600mmf/6.31/6400s500 ISO-1.0 EV
NIKON Z 9VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G lens600mmf/6.31/5000s400 ISO-1.0 EV
NIKON Z 9VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G lens600mmf/6.31/5000s400 ISO-1.0 EV
NIKON Z 9VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G lens600mmf/6.31/4000s640 ISO-1.0 EV
NIKON Z 9VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G lens600mmf/6.31/5000s1000 ISO0.0 EV
I'm with you. Great set, hard to pick a favorite, but the last one stands out for me - love that branch - and the bird is perfectly sharp and exposed to show off it's beauty.
Jim Dockery wrote:
I'm with you. Great set, hard to pick a favorite, but the last one stands out for me - love that branch - and the bird is perfectly sharp and exposed to show off it's beauty.
Thanks Jim. That last one was shot in about a two minute window when a storm was blowing in off the Pacific coast and the sun peeked out. It had just started to rain and when I turned around I was all alone as the four or five other photographers that were there that day had run for cover
Wow, Gary!
My pick was #1. Then I saw #2. And then, #3 popped up. #4! Well, you get the point . . . They are all stellar. Thanks for a masterful tutorial.
sum1sgrampa wrote:
Just a preference.
For any beginners who may be reading this, the effect is very simple to achieve. You just need a background a bit darker than your subject. You need your subject front lit. And most importantly you need to expose for the subject and let the background fall off to dark. Some of these backgrounds are almost pure black as shot but when I run the Raw file through DxO they lighten up more than I would like so it takes some work to get them back.
Holy smoke, Gary! I'm trying to wrap my mind around how you managed to get so many outstanding images to display in one post! Great job of isolating such a variety and nailing the exposures -- not to mention great compositions and excellent processing. I'm 'gobsmacked' as the saying goes. Voted!
Thanks Douglas
Even though you didn't number them 
It's a stellar set
