i painted this guy in the brich tree in my front yard. i had been there for 5 minutes or so before i heard the tapping. he was behind the trunck so i had to wait for him to come out of the shaadows - let me walk almost right under him! this is the best image.
Canon 30D
EF 100-400 f/4-5.6
400mm 1/160 @ 5.6 ISO 400
hand held not cropped
optimized and converted w/ LR
used the wonderful quick mask technique in PS to eliminate branches on the left, and sharpened
These guys can be pretty uncooperative at times I think:) Love the head color and you have pretty good feather detail too, really neat bird! I wish the bird was a bit lower or looking more your way.
Good capture, there are a few things that would improve the image from a nice shot to a great shot. It looks a bit over exposed with the whites being a bit hot. The mask didn't blend 100% but that clean background looks nice, Nonda mentioned the head angle, thats all about the waiting game. A bit more room for the tail would be nice. Lastly the overall high angle of the shot is a bit steep but woodpeckers are rough to find down low.
Just a few minor nits that would be easily corrected next time around. Looks like from the sapsucker wells in the bark you'll have plenty of ops to spend time with this great bird.
I pretty much took what the bird gave me here- i would have loved to have had a parallel with the head, but as you say Jared, it's tough to find these guys at your eye level. you know, he seems unafraid and spends a lot of time waiting for sap to ooze, so maybe I could quitely (yeah, that won't scare him!) put up a ladder! I think the exposure is ok, but there's so much white bark in the image that it makes it look that way. I'm with you Nonda, i really like his head color..
Red-breasted Sapsucker
