Downy Woodpecker

[Joel Eade]

Backyard setup. The lighting wasn't optimum so I tried to compensate with fill flash. I like the blurred out autumn leaves causing the orange/yellow BG. 40D, 300mm 2.8L, 1/100 sec, f/7.1, iso320, usual processing with ACR and CS4. Nothing cloned out or added.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the soft light, eye contact and BG. I might sharpen the perch a bit less and tone down the whites on the back and back of the head. I also wish there were some separation between beak and perch. Could you have moved a bit to your left?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Overall I like this - and the autumn mood you got. I also agree with Axel's critique. Even with such a beautiful BG I would still trim about half the space at right, and half below too - just to get better subject placement within the frame. The tree has tons of character and neat textures to succesfully fill much of the frame. Hope you like?

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the repost even though some of that beautiful BG was eliminated. I was drawn to the textures in the wood in the original and the repost capitalizes on it.

[Joel Eade]

I did think about the crop on the right as well as possibly removing a little of the tree on the left then at the last minute I just decided to leave it. I like the repost...the bird is bigger in the frame and stands out more. Thanks.

[Joel Eade]

PS...I was in a blind with no way to move to the left to get separation between the bird's beak and the tree.

[Steve Canuel]

I like the nice warm feel of this one. Personally prefer more of the BG over the tree but it seems you've got a couple of crop options to play with.

[Kiran Poonacha]

beautiful image,nice pose and details, how about a vertical crop??