Great Spotted Woodpecker

[Jonathan Ashton]

Bean bag Canon 7D Canon 500mm f5 L IS ISO 800 -0.67 1/500 sec f5

Shot taken from my garden hide. All C&C welcome.

[Randy Stout]

Jonathan:

All the components for a very nice woodpecker shot. Soft light, very attractive bird, interesting perch, all mixed in the right proportions.
The eye looks very cool, classic pose with prop tail working. Good head turn too.

Cheers

Randy

[Steve Zamek]

Everything look really good here of this classic shot of very lovely bird. I can't add much to what Randy said, expect that I love the background, nice soft color to highlight the bird, but not too uniform. I always have trouble with cropping of such images, but I feel that there's a bit too much room to the left of the bird -- feels just a bit off-balance to me.

[Michael Hogan]

Jonathan,

Lovely shot, great BG and pose. I think the image could do with a little brightening maybe just on the woodpecker to make it jump out a bit more.

great shot and TFS

Michael

[Bryan Hix]

Cool woodpecker, I've never seen this species before. Good head turn and BG colors. I might sharpen it a bit more, especially the head area.

[Rob Miner]

Jonathan,

Great picture. The only suggestion that I have is: When you produce your picture - make three different crops and study them for a number of days. Eventually one of the pictures will jump off the page - thats the one. This may not be needed for this picture, but will work in the future. Give it a try.

Rob....................

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely specimen and capture. Nice to get that perfect head angle. Love the HA here but agree the head could use a tad more sharpening.

As far as the crop, I would rather see a less boxy crop. I would probably try either a little off from the left or the right and see how you feel about the three when you look at them simultaneously. I think putting your subject a little more off center will make your capture more powerful.

In the end, you have one awesome picture here!

Marina

[Randy Stout]

Jonathan:

Good advice from the folks about the crop. The classic woodpecker crop is 1/3 sky(BG) 1/3 woodpecker, 1/3 perch.

I tend to stir this mixture up a bit depending on the relative strengths of the components. If it were mine, I would crop from the left as the 1st pass. Probably about 20% off the free space on left.

Randy

[Alan Murphy]

Beautifully done. I might consider softening the circles in the BG.

[Paul Lagasi]

Jonathan, when I was in England last year I could never get one of these to sit still long enough to get a decent image...nice capture, sharp, colorful, nice head turn...a winner...TFS

[Craig Brelsford]

Good shot of this familiar Eurasian species. Rob Miner's idea is compelling; I may try it myself. The classic woodpecker shot presents cropping problems. Usually, we want our bird looking into the photo. With a woodpecker in the classic pose, however, the bird is looking into a tree trunk. You probably thought it would be a pity to waste the good green background for the sake of an orthodox crop. So I can't fault you for putting the woodpecker in the middle of the frame. I think you handled the dilemma fairly well here.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for C&C I agree some good points to consider - I have to admit I wrestled a little with the composition. The tree trunk looks a little heavy to include full width and I know you guys just love smooth backgrounds - hence this composition, the background is the lawn and the pale patches are leaves.

[Art Kornienko]

I tend to agree with Craig here on the cropping. You handled it well and it's a lovely shot just the way it is. Agree about softening the circles a touch.

[Arthur Morris]

Jonathan:

Good advice from the folks about the crop. The classic woodpecker crop is 1/3 sky(BG) 1/3 woodpecker, 1/3 perch.

I tend to stir this mixture up a bit depending on the relative strengths of the components. If it were mine, I would crop from the left as the 1st pass. Probably about 20% off the free space on left.

Randy

Hey Randy, At least quote me :) IAC, that's what this image needs. Love the bird though.

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Sorry for lack of attribution. :)

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

No problema as long as you get it right in the future. I am pretty sure that nobody ever said or wrote that one before I did :)