Red Bellied Wood Pecker

[Gary Dietz]

Taken today with Nikon D300 Sigma 500/4.5 at f 5.6 1/500 ss. I metered off of trunk. Some blurring of BG in CS2

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Gary Got him at a good angle and like seeing the feet Might work on the eye area to lighten a bit Framing looks good Would give a little more room at the bottom for the virtual tail

Might list how you compensated for the exposure Nothing wrong with using the tree Generally I would use the Matrix and compensate from there On the D3 and D300 we have been finding very little compensation needed

[couman]

Hi Gary Got him at a good angle and like seeing the feet Might work on the eye area to lighten a bit Framing looks good Would give a little more room at the bottom for the virtual tail

Yes, there's nice color in the iris. You might bring that out either by lightening or by high-pass/hard light methods to reveal a little more "personality".

[Gary Dietz]

Alfred
I used spot meter on the trunk since it was not moving and it allowed me some test shots. Once I set my meter to a midtone and the light does not change I let the other colors and highlights take care of themselves. What would youmeter from when you are using matrix? The bird would not hang around long enough to use it?

Thanks for the advice

[Robert Smith]

Neat shot! I Iike the color around the mouth & just showing on his breast; the red on his head looks a tad oversaturated to me? I, too, wish there were more detail in the eye - perhaps a separate levels adjustment layer masked for only the eye?

More room for the tail would be good. I'd also be comfortable with a little less "background" on the left & more "trunk" on the right.

Great capture.

[Howard Burkert]

Hi Gary, Nice image.Thanks for sharing it. Just wanted to say that a local camera store let me test drive a D300. I feel you can really count on the matrix metering in the camera. Just focus,shoot and watch the your highlight warnigs. If you are off make any compensation. I wouldn't worry about missing a shot, the bird will return. Sometimes we try to complicate things to much. Enjoy your new camer!!
Best,
Howard.