Pileated Woodpecker

[Alex Becker]

Hi all,
Here is a Pileated Woodpecker captured in Florida. I was walking about with BIF settings and got lucky when this bird landed pretty close to me and I was able to get a couple frames before it took off again, so settings aren't optimal, but I haven't had a lot of chances to get close to these guys in NJ so I was happy at least for the experience. In post, cropped slightly, warmed the image a bit, sharpened and some minor noise reduction. Although I didn't end up using it for this image -- I played around with the Nik collection for sharpening and noise reduction but wasn't happy with the results although it was certainly operator error so I'll keep at it.


Camera: Nikon D500
Lens: 200-500mm f/5.6 at 500mm
Specs: 1/1600 ISO 2800 f/5.6


Thank you for looking,
Alex

[David Seymour]

Hi Alex,
Looks like the DOF may have been too shallow at f/5.6 and 500mm to bring everything into focus on this close subject - the near parts of the bird are more in focus than the head. Otherwise a striking image. As you wrote you can get caught out with BIF settings on the camera when this happens. If your camera has custom settings on the mode dial or elsewhere, try setting optimum BIF on one of the custom positions, and optimum settings for closer static subjects on another. Then you can switch very quickly.
Cheers, David

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot, I would be inclined to lift the darker plumage, more detail is apparent.

[Steve Kaluski]

I would be inclined to lift the darker plumage

You then introduce/highlight any noise then Jon. I would have exposed for the subject and let the BKG do whatever, but not to the point of blowing. You could then bring it back in PP.

[William Dickson]

Lovely pose and look back HA. I like the details on the bark, I would like to see more detail on the blacks of the bird. I remember some time ago, Steve advised me to expose for the blacks, and take care of the whites, in PP. and it works well :S3: So good advice from Steve.

Will

[Alex Becker]

Hi all,

Thank you for the comments and suggestions -- I'm attaching a repost where I've brought up the blacks a bit and hopefully haven't introduced too much noise as well as sharpened a bit more. Thanks for the suggestions re: exposure Will and Steve -- if I were to reshoot this I think I would go to 1/1000 SS and then ISO 3200 to have gotten as much detail out of the bird as possible.

Alex

[Jonathan Ashton]

I agree entirely with Steve's comments but having said that I still think the repost looks better than the original.