Acorn Woodpecker

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello again. Spent a day birding at Cachuma Lake yesterday and found these guys stashing acorns. Big challenge for me with black birds and the white makes for even more fun! Saving pennies for longer glass, which will definitely help with resolution.

Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.

Canon 50D ISO 400 1/640 sec f/7.1
EF70-200mm f/2.8L + 1.4x TE
Converted from 15MP RAW in DPP then PS work

[SeanKP]

Wow, Kerry, what a beautiful bird.

You are right, photographing black and white birds is a challenge, especially in sunlight. The main problem is the contrast. However, you do have details in both the whites and the blacks so your exposure is pretty good. In situations like this I tend to lower the contrast in DPP as much as possible. This does tend to give you a 'flat' looking image but I find I have more latitude in Photoshop to bring back some contrast without blowing the whites.

I am assuming this was quite a large crop. Even so, you have impressive detail for a 200mm lens. I think you are seeing the benefit of the extra pixels in the 50D's sensor. If you have cropped, I would tend to put some canvas back on the RHS and maybe up top too. It feels a bit tight in the frame and the bird needs somewhere to look into.

Cheers.

Sean

[SeanKP]

I hope you don't mind but I've had a quick play with your image. Here's what I did.

I used shadow / highlight tool to lower the contrast some, added some canvas to the right, cloned out a branch from the background and sharpened a bit.

It's only a rough go at it and there are far better Photoshoppers on here than I am but hopefully it will give you an idea or two.

Cheers.

Sean

[Alfred Forns]

Good critique Sean !!!!

Hi Kerry got a suggestion as far as a lens ! Ideally the Super Teles are the way to go but they are in the thousands, however consider a 400 5.6 With your camera it becomes a 600 and with a 1.4X becomes 840.

With the converter it will be manual focus but for some birds it is just fine and the quality is good. If you are able to get a longer lens later this will be one fine flight lens, it was my favorite when I was using Canon.

Would frame image a little looser, bird feels tight in frame. Do like the position but need the head angle. Would have used the lens wide open to blur bg, I feel it takes precedence over dof.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Beautiful bird Kerry and great repost by Sean. Looking forward to more!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Kerry,
You got yourself a fine looking specimen. Very good advise given By Mr. Forns and a good repost by Sean...practice, practice and allot of patience...looking forward to your next capture...:cool:

[Harold Davis]

beautiful bird, kerry!! some great suggestions above! keep em coming!!

[Kerry Perkins]

I really appreciate the feedback and please feel free to rework the images. I find that very helpful!

Sean, thank you for the suggestions and example. I'm a little sheepish to admit that I had already taken out two branches, one through his head and one through the body. Thanks for finishing the job!

Alfred, I appreciate the suggestion regarding a longer lens. I think the 400 is the logical next step for me, and I have read of others getting good results with this lens by shooting at high ISOs and shutter speeds.

Going to try to get one more posted tonight...