Downy or Hairy?

[Andre van As]

My first viewable bird capture. I suspect this is a Downy because of it's size. I am unable to tell the difference from pictures in various references.
Hasselblad H3DII -50, 300mm HC lens X 1.7 converter (effective 510mm), tripod mounted, ISO 400, 1/125, f9.0, Metering CW, MUP, remote shutter trigger, Flash Mecablitz off camera with diffuser, ISO 400, f9, SS 1/125.
I set up a suet feeder in a Magnolia tree and observed that the Wood Peckers always took the same route to the feeder up the same branch. So I was able to set up the rather heavy gear and sit back in a comfortable chair and remotely actuate the shutter. I suspect the whites on the feathers could be a little lighter but they appear similar in color to real life. Cleaned up in Adobe RAW, OOF branch at the bottom cloned out. Selective sharpening on the beak and tail feathers. I left the rest of the background untouched.
I welcome all comments.

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[Doug Brown]

The angle is slightly off, but I'm going with Downy due to the ratio of beak to head size (the Downy has a smaller beak). Now onto the photo. Your exposure is good. Sharpness is OK but you could probably sharpen the bird a little more. I see some cloning artifacts at the bottom of the perch in the LLC. But most of all, I wish the bird had been looking more towards us.

[Andre van As]

Thanks Doug. I sharpened in Camera RAW and pushed the Amount to 100, Radius to 1, Detail to 25 and Masking to 50 using the greyscale preview on the latter 2. I then tried Topaz InFocus to see if it could be improved but did not see any more sharpening. An 8.5X10 print was tack sharp. I will go to cloning school; - any suggestions?

[Bill Dix]

Definitely a Downy. Even when you don't have the benefit of seeing the two species side by side, the Hairy's bill is noticeably larger relative to the head than is the Downy's. Good critique from Doug; wish for that head turn.

[Marina Scarr]

Agree on the Downy but wish his head weren't turned away. It's usually helpful to do the sharpening at the very end of the post processing after you have resized the image.

[Andre van As]

Thanks Marina, I will try sharpening after resizing. However I followed the Martin Evening (Adobe PS for Photographers CS6) recommendation to sharpen globally in Adobe RAW while working on the image and then to do a final unsharp on the image that will be printed which is the image I posted. It was my impression that sharpening and noise reduction worked better in Adobe RAW than in Topaz. I would be interested to know what you do as your images are great.

Andre

[Arthur Morris]

Andre, First off welcome and thanks a stack for your membership support.

You are a bit confused by the sharpening advice :). First off, with that tiny bill it is a downy as all above stated. Good on Marina for pointing out the less than ideal head angle. I use the default settings (25, 1.0, 25, and 0) for Global Sherpening in ACR and suggest that you do the same. And setting the Clarity slider to 30 adds a bit of "in-camera" sharpening as well. If you happen to over-sharpen the RAW file you can never undo it.

Then it seems that you sharpened the image for an 8X10 print and presented that version here. Sorry, but that makes zero sense. You do not want to sharpen any image until and unless it is sized for final use be it a billboard, an 8X10" print, or 1024 px wide for BPN.

I would suggest that you consider getting a copy of our Digital Basics File (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252) before you become further confused :).

[Andre van As]

Hi Art
Thanks for the input. I unfortunately decided to cut my teeth on the most difficult of all subjects to photograph - birds - and having sat shooting them now for about 8 hours over 2 days I appreciate that they never stay still or strike a pose that one would like. In addition my choice of equipment is not the most flexible for this subject.
Re sharpening - I will try your settings and see how it works. I always keep my original raw files that I download from the camera so I can go back and start from the beginning.
Re getting confused - that is really easy for me as it appears there as many work flows and settings as there are people writing about them but your images attest to your method working.
Appreciate you pointing me to the Digital Basics File. I have come to realize that PP can become an all consuming monster if it is not controlled. I find the member feedback very instructive.

Regards

Andre

[Peter Dexter]

Nice capture of a male Downy Andres. Not really possible to see in your photo here but if you have more you might check for this: apart from the bill difference the Downey Woodpecker has a couple of black dots in it's white outer tail feathers. The Hairy does not.

[Andre van As]

Hi Peter
Thanks for the additional ID tip. Unfortunately I do not have a tail feather view but this fellow is a frequent visitor so I will check with my binoculars.

Regards

Andre