Need Some Tips, Gila Woodpecker

[Guerry Dalrymple]

Female Gila Woodpecker

Canon 40D, 300 f4 IS, cable release
ISO 200, Av mode at f6.3, 1/1600, WB Daylight
Single focus point, Al Servo Kirk window mount and a Wimberly 200 head.

Unabe to use view finder due to my mobility limitations. Used Live View and programed rear AF button.

Picture straight from camera after conversion and resize for web.
How can I make it better? Sharpness, content, comp, etc.


Thanks for any help
Guerry

[Dan Brown]

Hi Guerry. The image looks a little under exposed, but not too bad. Here are a few things that you can do. First, I cropped the image by about 40% to what I thought looked good without going too far, positioning the birds head and body in a pleasing spot. Then I adjusted with layers - levels, curves, hue/saturation (green, blue and red) to taste. I used a selective color layer to boost the blacks and neutrals about +2. I adjusted with Shadow/Highlight to bring out more detail in the shadows. I added a little sharpening with NIK sharpener pro (a PS plugin) also. Oh, I also reduced noise a bit with Noise Ninja (a PS plugin), although the image wasn't particularly noisey I sometimes like what Noise Ninja produces. Of course, I finally flattened the layers.

Good luck,

Dan Brown,
Sacramento

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Guerry Good idea setting the camera with the rear button and live view !!!!!

Good pose on the bird, got the entire tail in the frame and great having its meal !!! Light was from the hard left leaving the back side dark. Did not list the exposure compensation but you were not all that far off. Image just a bit under. If possible fill flash would have been the ticket here since moving to sun angle not practical.

Image was cropped, used levels to set the white/black point, the slight contrast increase. Cropping wise I want the bird toward one of the corners with the empty space for him to look !!! Image could be a little sharper. The critical focus is around the shoulder area not the eye but image looks good. Gave it a usm pass and sharpened well !!! Wold also suggest posting at max allowable size to make it easier to see. You can go to 800 pixels and the max kb has been bumped to 200 !!! Looking forward to more !!!

[Judd Patterson]

Hey Guerry, a great species on a spectacular perch. As Dan mentions, the entire image is a bit underexposed and it might help to check the histogram in the field to check your exposure. In this case you could have probably gone +1 and still not had anything overexposed. It's also a tough situation with some pretty intense side-lighting. The choices are to move so the sun is more or less over your shoulder (if that is possible in this situation) or to try and use some fill flash to lessen the shadows. During RAW conversion you might also be able to simulate the effect of fill flash to a small degree by using the "Fill Light" slider in Adobe Camera RAW (or something equivalent in another RAW converter). A great start!

[Gus Cobos]

Guerry,
Very nice pose, I like the concept...:) no nits from me, since all of the points have been covered with the reposts...:)

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great composition, excellent repost.

[Guerry Dalrymple]

Thanks everyone for the replys. I will try these reomendations on some of the other shots from the outing.

Guerry