Two Juvenile Pileated Woodpeckers

[Terry Olmsted]

A most unusual treat for us. Taken near our feeders in Woodway, Washington. This is nearly full frame (cropped slightly only on one side). Unfortunately because I was fairly close, I had to cut off a bit of the tail feathers. A little noise in the background thanks to ISO 1250, but given the unusual nature of the shot, I wanted to post this.

August 1, 2009 Canon 40D, 400mm f5.6L 1/800s f5.6 ISO 1250 partial metering Av hand held

[Randy Stout]

Terry:

Nice capture of a pretty unusual scene. I would suspect these were from the same nest. I have been unable to get the pileateds in our woods to come to the suet feeders, so really appreciate seeing this pair.

The image is a bit dark for me, but I suspect you didn't want to try and boost it much because of the noise.The HA of the right bird is off a bit, but the interaction makes it work for me. The exposure seems pretty close on the right bird, the blacks are a bit blocked on the left bird.

Still, a fun capture, and one I enjoyed seeing. Hopefully they will come back and let you get some more!

Cheers

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find, angle and sharpness. I would have tried to point down just above the heads to get the tails in the frame and extended the canvas at the top in post-processing. I would also run NR on the BG.

[Daniel Cadieux]

That must have been a special treat to see this. Were they alternately swaying their heads back-and-forth as other species of woodpeckers do? Too bad about the clipped tails - maybe you could crop to about halfway up the right bird's tail...this way it might look more like an intentional cut rather than an accidental clip...just a thought. I would also crop a bit at right to give each bird the equal amount of space between them and their respective frame edges (with them facing each other I feel that would balance the image better). There appears to be clone marks in ULC that need tidying up.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks for the critiques and suggestions. Always helpful! Here's a repost with a different crop as Daniel suggested. I also lightened the image just a bit and reduced the bg noise (Neat Image).
BTW, Daniel, I did not see any side to side head movement, but unfortunately they only stayed in that position for a few seconds. Sure hope to see them again.

[Harshad Barve]

nice pose , andgel and sharpness
repost works better
TFS

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I like the framing and sometimes not a lot you can do when they are THAT close. Daniel's suggestion is great and your repost far more appealing. Thanks for sharing.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the recrop, but I would prefer if you kept the contrast of the original.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks Daniel - I agree with you on the contrast - I should have left the
contrast/lightness alone. Thanks for the help!

PS I restored the contrast levels on the reposted cropped version. I think the cropping you suggested is a great improvement. I fixed the
messy clone area too :) Thanks again.