Pileated Woodpecker

[Steve Maxson]

This female Pileated Woodpecker was photographed at a suet feeder setup. 40D, 500 f/4, 1/320, f/6.3, ISO 500, reds desaturated, NR on background. I cleaned up the perch and some small bits of suet. All comments welcome and appreciated.

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

I always enjoy your pileated images. Despite your tips in the past, I have never been able to get my pileateds to come to my suet feeders. I have several pairs in the neighborhood, and can hear them drumming, but they won't come in. I put out suet feeders on the edge of the woods to encourage them, no luck.

Classic woodpecker shot, with nice display of prop tail and strong foot. Nice exposure, soft light helped.

Might show a sliver more of the trunk for balance, but nice as is.

Cheers

Randy

[David Pugsley]

Lovely pileated shot with a great, strong pose. I agree with the above and would like to see a bit more of the tree. To my eye it looks as if the image could use a very slight counter-clockwise rotation as well.

[Randy Stout]

David:
I agree that the trunk isn't perfectly vertical, but many trunks aren't and find that some angle in the frame often is more pleasing than perfect squareness. Just my .o2

Randy

[Steve Maxson]

Thanks for your comments Randy and David.
Sorry to hear that you are not having luck with these birds, Randy. I must have some unusually cooperative birds here - and have had for a number of years now. :)
I agree that the trunk isn't perfectly vertical. I could have made it that way in PP, but decided to leave it like this because, as Randy noted, many trees are not perfectly vertical and I didn't find this amount of lean to be objectionable (other opinions are welcome :) )
There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how much trunk to show in woodpecker images. Last week I posted an image of a hairy woodpecker on a partial tree trunk. One commenter wanted to see the whole tree and a bit more while 2 others wanted to crop more of the tree - so I guess I'm still puzzled by this tree trunk issue. :) :) In any case, there is no additional room on the left side of this image.

[David Gancarz]

Very nice exposure, capture, and sharpness. This is not an easy bird to capture the full dynamic range, especially here in strong Florida light. I don't mind the tree trunk angle at all, but I do find the OOF light objects a bit distracting. Maybe a smaller f-stop might help?

Is this an immature bird?

[Fabs Forns]

Spotless composition if a little tight, great exposure, definition and angle, the best you can get :)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Although I'm OK with the angle of the tree I too would like to see more of it. It just seems that the WP is close to that front edge. I think having close to double the amount of tree showing would strike a good compositional balance IMO.

Excellent HA!! Perfect exposure too. I like the BG but wish some of the lighter streaks were not as obvious. It also feels like we are looking slightly up at this gal...did it come down the trunk a bit more?

[Steve Maxson]

Very nice exposure, capture, and sharpness. This is not an easy bird to capture the full dynamic range, especially here in strong Florida light. I don't mind the tree trunk angle at all, but I do find the OOF light objects a bit distracting. Maybe a smaller f-stop might help?

Is this an immature bird?
Thanks for your comments, David. I'm sorry to say that I don't know how to tell whether this is an immature bird (the photo was taken in March last year) and my bird books (e.g., Sibley) aren't any help. If you or someone else knows how to age this species, please speak up - I'd like to know. :)

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

The classic composition for wood peckers is: 1/3 trunk, 1/3 bird, 1/3 sky. Well, you know how rules are meant to be broken, but it does work pretty well in general. Certainly a safe place to start, then adjust to taste!

Randy

[Steve Maxson]

It also feels like we are looking slightly up at this gal...did it come down the trunk a bit more?

Thanks for your comments, Daniel. Actually, the camera was very close to eye level with the bird. Maybe the way its head is cocked makes it seem as if we are looking up at it? :)

[Jim Crosswell]

This is a real beauty Steve! I like it as posted and would be happy to have it in my files.

[Don Anderson]

Nice capture of my fav. woodpecker.. a tad tight, but very nice shot of
a very tough bird to shoot.

[Kiran Poonacha]

All Said above, I really love the details and the sharpness here..