Pileated Woodpecker

[CM Prince]

This has become a yard bird for me. I can get within ten feet of him.

140858

Nikon D90, 1/160 sec. at f 5.6, ISO 800, 300 mm, hand held, no crop

All C & C welcome, just trying to learn.

C M

[Carolyn Arnesen]

This is one big beautiful bird. I like your comp. This image seems sharp, but I find myself wanting to see more detail. If it were mine, I would try levels to open it up slightly. Thanks for posting.

[CM Prince]

Is this better?

140870

[David Kenny]

CM,

It looks like the image is sharp especially hand held at 160th. I like the Comp and the green background. I know this is personal preference but I would rather see the bird on a tree. If he is hanging around hopefully you will get some more shots of him. It seems like in the original post maybe some stray light was getting in (did you have a lens hood on?). If it were mine I would add some contrast to it to see if that helps. The repost looks a little over done to me.

- Dave

[CM Prince]

Let's look at this one on a tree on a tree.

140873

Nikon D90, 1/125 at f/ 5.6, ISO 450, 300 mm, hand held

Thanks for the comments

C M

[Diane Miller]

A beautiful bird, and so neat you can get close to him!! I like the composition and the BG is beautiful.

The original is a little low in contrast, with the repost an improvement, but there are several ways to achieve the best contrast and the contrast slider isn't always the optimal way. I don't remember how you are processing. Can you give some information?

As to the shooting, a higher shutter speed and smaller aperture might have given a little more sharpness, but it's not easy to evaluate sharpness from a post here -- it may be very sharp and just a little lacking in the light that will bring out fine details. How does sharpness look at 100%? It looks like you had low light, which is frustrating.

[Diane Miller]

We posted at the same time -- I didn't see your second shot until I had posted my reply. The powers here request that we put a different shot in a new thread -- modifications to the original shot belong in the same thread.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing some lack of fine detail here, but I wonder if things would be sharper with a higher SS. My choice is to go to a higher ISO and deal with any noise later, as that is easier to correct with the latest tools, but an unsharp image is virtually impossible to improve. But again, it could just be the lighting that's giving that impression.

Esthetically, I like the setting here but I'd suggest removing the diagonal branch behind the bird.

You have a great subject here -- keep working it and post more!