photos in the rain question

[Nikkie]

Hi all I took some photos of king parrots it was raining cats and dogs the birds have raindrops on there backs but you can't see the rain falling down I also took another photo of a tree and you can see the rain falling down I am just wondering why that is please.

[markjaffa]

I will have a stab at answering this. My opinion only, not proven facts.

The background in the tree shot has low luminosity. The DOF on the tree shot has also left the leaves much less defined - or a fairly uniform background, when compared to the grass in the bird shot. So the raindrops stand out.

The luminosity of the grass in the bird shot is much higher, hiding the raindrops against the bright areas of the grass. Plus the jagged nature of the background in the bird shot doesnt allow you to discern the raindrops against the blades of grass. Possibly a greater depth of field would allow you to spot drops, but I think the busy background - grass - would make it very difficult.

My 2c

[Nikkie]

thank you Mark Yes it makes sense to me having it put that now I see what you mean thanks again

[arthurking83]

I reckon mark just converted his 2c worth into 20c worth.. he's probably right on the money.
But I also wanted to add one more point of view, in that I think I can see at least one trail of rain drop in the bird image. Just above the birdies tail there is a ghostly looking trail.
There's no exif data embedded in the image, so it begs the question as to what shutter speeds you were using for each image?
There seems to be a lot of blur in the birds head, which points to a slow-ish shutter speed. ie. have the rain drops been blurred out as well as blended into the luminance level of the background?

I reckon it's all about luminosity differences .. ie. contrast. If there is no contrast everything blends into one murky misty mess.