House hunting Pileated?

[laurie golden]

This pileated spent a lot of time checking out this hole, I'm not sure he noticed that the tree is to small for his kind of remodeling. This photo taken in a back lit gray sky and I have tried several times to process it without fringing and this is the best I could do. Any help here would be appreciated. I liked the perch so had to try something. Originally taken as a horizontal and cropped to vertical and added a little blue to the gray sky.

Nikon D3S, 500mm f4 plus 1.4 converter
ISO 800, f5.6, 1/640sec
Manual exposure

[Karl Egressy]

I like the raggedy looking lichen covered old tree as a perch. Nice pose with good head angle and eye contact.
Light looks a little hars. Fill flash would have helped a bit. Very nice picture overall.

[Arthur Morris]

I love this species. You caught a very good head angle and there is lots of detail in the BLACKs. The RED seems lacking in detail though. A crop from top and bottom would put more emphasis on the bird. I like the perch but for the branch that protrudes towards us. Bad luck there.

Holes like this are surely feeding holes not nests :).

[laurie golden]

Artie,

I had a lot of trouble with the exposure. When he showed up behind me I was photographing warblers and wrens so not much time to change settings or put on better beamer for flash although I did get a good shot when he was lower on another tree. Not sure what I can do with the red - I think it happened in processing.

This was a chickadee nest a couple of years ago. He still had suet on his beak from my feeder.

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, Not sure what I can do with the red - I think it happened in processing.

How do the REDs look in the RAW file?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Considering the conditions you describe you did very well here. Very neat looking tree - I hope you got images of the nesting chickadees back then! Comp-wise I like the size of the bird in the frame but wish for a bit less canvas at left and a bit more at right. For the sky you should be able to fiddle with the cyan and blue channels in "Selective Color" with introducing fringing (if that is where your question is leading to).

[laurie golden]

Artie - the raw file shows blown out sky but except for a few very small dots at the top of the red, it is ok.

Dan - The fringing was on the tree, I got both red and blue and on the white stripe on the face if I tried my usual Topaz Detail adjustments or even Curves. I tried PS lens correction to get rid of it but it did not work.

[dankearl]

I am envious of your opportunity here. A lifer for me, and you made the most of it.

[Bob Serling]

What a beautiful bird! Unfortunately, they aren't residents of coastal San Diego :-(. I agree with a bit of a crop on top and bottom - and I'd also crop out some of the blue sky on the left.