Greater Spotted Woody-rear view.

[John Robinson]

Greater Spotted Woody
I love largish birds on small perches.
Through room window.(Double glazed) Background are beech leaves in the hedge with sun from behind.
You can see the house end wall in the eye reflection. Painted white it acts as a reflector.
Nikon 70-300
Crop from landscape
640 ISO
125th @f8
Paintshop Pro.7
Neatimage
CZM
Perch stuck in adjustable clothes line pole
Thanks for Waggy comments.
Cheers
JR

[Doug Brown]

I like the perch and pose. Detail is decent considering you shot through glass. I could see going a little brighter on your exposure to bring out a bit more detail in the blacks. I might desaturate the BG somewhat as it is competing with your subject IMO.

[John Robinson]

Thanks Doug
Yes I left the back as it was to see the reactions. It is ,or was in fact brighter and more colourful than that which Autumn beech leaves are. Silly thing is, I moved my position on purpose to get them in!!!
Repost here but not sure I like it.
Cheers
JohnR
Thanks for your input.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I suppose we can tweak things in perpetuity, but I feel that somewhere between the two would be the best compromise. Very subjective of course. Perch, comp, subject all look great. BG is OK but opening up even more would have helped render it even smoother (unless this is the look you were going for). Just a bit better head angle would have been over the top. I see the house, thanks for pointing it out :-)

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot John, I agree the original background is a little eye catching and a little less saturation helps, I am not sure how big in the frame the bird was but possibly you may have got away with a slightly larger aperture to blur the background more. The other thing f odfcourse is a small amount of Gaussian blur to the background.

[John Robinson]

Thanks all
Jon- I am working very close out the window and the hedge is about 15 foot behind the perch, Anything less(or bigger) than f8 and its a job w with bird DOF when something bigger tuns up. I did blur it a bit but could easily give it some more altjhough I doo like something in the background.
Cheers
JR

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Nice WP, good pose and and eye contact, for me, a version between the original post and the second one on the BG as it looks a tad sterile now. Just my opinion.

[Shawn Zierman]

Great looking woodpecker, nicely posed, perfect head angle. The background is too visually complex for me either way....just too much visual competition with the subject imo. Not sure why there is the suggestion of a straight line running across the image near the bottom of the frame, unless that's a window pane....?

[John Robinson]

Thanks all . Intereseting and useful comments on the back ground. If I shoot through the window I have no choice -its either a beech hedge with bright Autumn leaves or a large hazel bush. I,ll have to do some drastic garden design !!!
Shawn
Easy to explain the line. My fault but my eyes these days don;t always see it and I sometimes forget. Its a quirk of using the high pass filter in a programme called CZM for a round of sharpening as opposed to using USM etc. What it does is mirrors the edge all the way around- usually at two sides for a few pixels. Don't ask me why. I usually take it off but missed this one. Well spotted.
Cheers
JR