Pileated Woodpecker

[Dave Harwood]

Ordinarily this is quite a find, except when the woodpecker is banging on an 80' hemlock not more than 30' from your home! Within days woody had the first 15' of trunk stripped bare of bark and it wasn't much after that we had to have the tree taken down, sadly. This is my first post here so I'm feeling my way and I ask for your direction and support in figuring out what to do. With the bird's repeated visits, I had time to compose the shot and get ready, plus the convenience of it being right in my own backyard. All of which is to say, I have no excuse for whatever shortcomings there are. The area was shaded, hence the need to increase ISO to keep the shutter at a bare minimum. The particulars for this capture include:

Camera Model Canon EOS 1DX IIShooting Date Sept 9, 2018
Shooting Mode Manual
Tv(Shutter Speed) 1/400
Av(Aperture Value) f/5.6
Metering Mode Pattern
EC
ISO Speed 4000
Lens EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x
Focal Length 560 mm
Flash Type Did not fire
Tripod Used
50 % of Original
GPS Thompson Lake, Maine




Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.

[Arthur Morris]

Welcome and a nice first post. I am confused a bit by the story; how high off the ground was the bird when you made this image? Were you standing on the ground? Your angle does not look too steep at all.

I have lots to say about the image. First off, for vertical woodpecker on tree images I have long recommended 1/3 tree, 1/3 bird, 1/3 background. If your posted image, the BKGR occupies 1/2 of the frame, in other words, way too much. This one needed more tree and less room behind the bird.

Do you have an original with more of the tree in the frame?

As for the lighting, you have done a pretty good job. The big problem is that the crest and the back of the head are sunlit while the rest of the bird is in shade ...

The color balance is off as there is somewhat of a GREEN cast in the feathers, especially the WHITE feathers.

Image quality looked very good when I brought the image into Photoshop. I did note that the pupil was a bit funky so for the repost I did some Eye Doctor Work and darkened it.


To improve the color balance, I used the Eyedropper Tool and clicked on the brightest WHITE. That cooled the image a bit too much so I warmed it up 2 points. (Doing this during the RAW conversion is a much better approach. To attempt to even out the exposure, I ran my NIK 50-50 recipe on the face and bill and painted away the lower neck at 50% using a Regular Layer Mask. Then I sharpened the shaded part of the face and bill with a contrast mask (Unsharp Mask at 15/65/0). I also toned down the sunlit REDs by reducing the Luminance and then adding 30 points of CYAN to the RED in Selective Color. My 2X3 crop from three sides was an attempt to improve the composition but it still needs more tree and less BKGR.

Everything above and tons more is covered in detail in my Digital Basics II.

Let me know if you have any questions or need more help. I am looking forward to seeing more of your images here soon. I have almost nothing on this species :(

with love, artie

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hi Dave, welcome to BPN! Man, these guys can inflict some serious damage to trees in no time. They are beautiful to look at though. I love the texture of the tree trunk. Busy background, but it is interesting. Artie has improved the comp big-time, but now the bird has a bluish cast. Fun first post, hoping to see more from you!

[Dave Harwood]

Thank you for these carefully considered and helpful suggestions. The bird wasn't much other than 15' off the ground. The angle looks as gentle as it is because I was standing quite a distance away with nothing but lawn between us. Changed the cropping by using a ⅓ grid and you're right: ⅓ of background is plenty, plus this way you get to see how woody turned my tree into an ear of corn. While in LR took another crack at WB. Toned down the Nik filters, brightened the white feathers, and sharpened the eye. The Digital Basics guide is exhaustively educational. Incorporated the recipes to consult. Will look forward to benefiting from this caliber of help anytime.
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