Red Bellied

[Dave Roberts]

This Red Bellied Woodpecker kept playing peek-a-boo with me and refused to completely show himself. This isn't the first time this has happened to me with Red Bellies.

Specifics are:
1/500 Shutter Speed
f/9.5
ISO 400
300L f/4

PP includes some minor adjustments in Level, Hue, Saturation and USM all within PhotoShop Elements 6. I did perform some minor NR on the background.

[Dave Leroy]

It certainly looks like you were nice and close. I like the composition, nice details and dof. Very good eye contact as well. Dave

[Joel Eade]

I like the closeness and detail. I would try to lighten the face a little, clean up the beak and work on the eye in terms of detail and brightness.

[Martin Wallis]

very sharp, great detail.

[Callie de Wet]

Lovely detail on the plumage and yes, that famous red belly is well hidden - spiefull sod to treat you like that, Dave!

[Ted Willcox]

Hi dave
Neat Woodpecker, nice image. I have 5 species of woodpeckers in my area out here on the west coast. Pileated,Hairy,Downy,Redbreasted sapsucker and Nothern flicker. I find all but the flicker to be fairly easy to approach when photographing, although you still have to take care when doing so. How do Red Bellies react to being photographed?
Curious Ted

[Dave Roberts]

Thank you all for the constructive and helpful comments and critiques. I appreciate them.

Joel, could you please explain a little more what you mean by "eye detail and brightness"?

Ted, we have all the same woodpeckers you mentioned except the sapsucker. The Red Bellies seem to like to play hide-n-seek when being photographed. Actually its pretty fun!

[Mark Adkins]

Very nice. I find that the hairy's and downy's in my area are much less skittish than the red bellied and palliated, so nice capture. Great that you got so close, but I would clean up the beak.

Mark