Downy Woodpecker

[David Kenny]

Downy woodpecker from Monday. I exposed to the right on this one and used a little highlight recovery, added a little fill light and increased the blacks in LR. I am not sure how the whites look maybe still a little to hot. I also shot this one at f8 instead of 5.6. uncropped

Canon 7D 100-400mm @ 300mm
ISO 400
F 8
1/125
Tripod
Daylight white balance

- Dave

[Shawn Zierman]

Great color scheme between the perch and the background. The woodpecker pops nicely in this color scheme. Pretty good head angle, and the bird is nicely posed, with some real nice separation between the upper body and the perch. The whites just look a little overexposed, not suprising given your stated shutter speed in what appears to be decent light quality. I'm sure you could bring down the exposure a bit prior to RAW conversion/with a little recovery, to tame the whites a bit. How did you arrive at your exposure?

[David Kenny]

Shawn,

I was using aperture priority with+1 exposure compensation. I will turn down the whites and try to repost later. Thanks.

Dave

[David Kenny]

I darkened the exposure a little and turned down the whites (using recovery slider) in LR. Let me know what you think.

[Shawn Zierman]

Yeppers. I think you did a nice job. That's pretty close to as good as those whites are going to look without turning grey on you with more processing.

[Sandy Witvoet]

What Shawn said, David! She seems a bit too tipped toward the back/right and the tree/perch is rather large in comparison to the bird.

[Ian Cassell]

Very pretty, David. You did a good job with a tough black and white bird. I'd be tempted to crop a bit off the top as the upper perch overpowers the bird a bit IMHO.

[David Kenny]

Thank you all for your input. I am much happier with the second image.

Sandy and Ian - Yes the perch is large / overpowering for the bird and it is tilted to the left a bit. These are the details I need to pay more attention too.


Thanks again,

Dave

[Diane Miller]

A very nice image and sharpness looks good. Good comments above. I would concur to take some off the top, especially for presentation here, since the subjects in verticals don't show as large. (Keep the original for a magazine cover!) Sounds like you have an older version of LR from your mention of a Recovery slider. The new Process 2012 sliders in LR 4 and above are a very significant improvement for getting the best highlight and shadow detail. It would be interesting to see what they would do here.

ETTR is good, but going too far with a white subject can be a problem. I'll bracket exposure if I have time.