Red Bellied Woodpecker (Female) Is it sufficiently sharp?

[Morris Burke]

This was taken using a Canon T2i with a 300mm L IS lens and 1.4x extender. Hand held, shutter priority 1/1000 sec and shot through the window at the nature center at West Woods Ohio. They have an indoor viewing area overlooking a feeding area and it acts like a blind.

[Doug West]

Looks sharp to me. Have you tried to increase the exposure a little? Seems just a tad dark.
If you do try to brighten it, be careful of the red or you'll blow it out. Also, maybe crop off
just a tad on the right so the branch isn't going straight up in the middle of the image.

BTW, when you said thru a window...was the window open or were you shooting thru
the glass?

Doug

[Morris Burke]

Hi Doug. Thanks for the suggestions. I shall work on the image and lighten it before cropping.

THe windows were closed and I had to shoot through the glass. Luckily it did not seem to effect the IQ significantly.

Cheers

Morris

[Joel Eade]

To my eyes the IQ is suffering from some noise (perhaps due to underexposure) and the fine detail is not as good as could be expected given your equipment. The eye looks a little soft as does the small area of red feathers at the base of the beak. I suspect the shooting through the glass door did hurt you some here.

[Morris Burke]

Thanks for the comments Joel. On re-examining the image I tend to agree with you that the IQ may have been degraded by shooting thu the window pane.


Apparently my old eyes are not as discriminating as they used to be...LOL

[Bob Miller]

Hi Morris....i think the sharpness could be slightly better but overall i think it looks very good.....only the eye could be sharpened just a tad more.....I think the claws and feather detail are nicely sharp. I do think you should run a round of noise reduction on the bg selectively so you don't lose any of the sharpness. Nicely done!

[Morris Burke]

Thanks for the suggestions Bob. I tried those modifications and it looks a lot better especially now that the eye is sharpened and the catch light lightened a bit. Thanks again.