Feeding Time

[Steve Large]

Greetings Everyone,

Here a female Pileated Woodpecker feeds her young. Photographed at Neck Point Park in Nanaimo.

Stats: Canon 50D, 500mm F/4, ISO 1600, F/8 at 1/160 sec, Natural light.

Thanks for looking,

Steve

[Julie Brown]

Steve, the action captured here is just wonderful. It would be such a thrill to see this in person.

There is no detail in the feathers on the bird. You must have had relatively low light-I noticed that you shot this at ISO 1600 and 1/160sec. Was this HH or off a tripod?

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Steve, an awesome moment to capture for sure. Agree with Julie, bringing out the details in the blacks etc, would put you over the top. Flash would have made it for ya! Congrats on nailing a great moment!
don

[Steve Large]

Hi Julie and Don,
Thanks for the comments. I kind of knew when I posted it that someone might comment on the black of the parent bird. The details are there but when I try to pull them out I get a strange banding in the dark areas. This seems to be a problem that has been noted before about the 50D at higher ISO's. Here is a shot of the female taken yesterday with a flash unit. Not as well composed but better feather detail.

Thanks,

Steve

[Colin Knight]

You'll definitely run into some noise problems if you push a 50D ISO 1600 image up. The thing to do would have been to expose more to the right. Can you explain why you chose f/8?

Great action captured for sure!

[Tobias Hayashi]

Love the pose and setting of the first image. Agree that the noise is a little prevalent and the detail is a bit lacking. Flash might have helped a bit. Also maybe a teeeny bit more room around the bird in general? Regardless, beautiful birds, great behaviour you've captured.

[Juan Aragonés]

I like the action a lot but the image is very tight in the frame to my taste and you are richt, there are no details in the blacks and the noise is high but, in my opinion, is better to get a noisy image than to get nothing ;)