Red-bellied Woodpecker

Gallery: AvianPosted November 25, 201072 views6 comments

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus)

This fellow seemed very proud of his find as he perched quite close to me. He was not exactly quiet around me either. The shot was taken just two days ago. Looks like it might have been our last really mild (14 deg. C) weather for some time.

I hope that all of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving today enjoy your dinner as much as he did!! Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

I was very happy to capture this shot. All of my previous attempts to photograph this species always suffered some annoying defficiency. The 1D Mark IV autofocus worked beautifully with my 1.4 X TC. The aperture was smaller than I really needed but it's nice to have plenty of DOF here.

1D Mark IV, 400 mm f/5.6+1.4X TC: ISO 800, 1/1000 s, f/13, 6.5 MP after cropping, minor NR, exposure adjustment, sharpening; thin dark branch removed from upper LHS.

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Ron Bielefeld on November 25, 2010 at 5:20 PM

The bird looks really nice in the larger image. Sharper than in the 720px version. The OOF branches in the BG don't bother me, but the OOF stuff in the LLC attracts my eye a bit.

Registered on December 6, 2008, 360 Posts, 7132 Comments

Comment posted by Eric Diller on November 25, 2010 at 6:40 PM

Nice details! Larger version is definitely sharper!

Registered on October 2, 2009, 69 Posts, 434 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on November 26, 2010 at 8:45 PM

Steve,

I love the food in the bill and the setting, the oof branches break up the blue in the background. The larger image has very nice details and sharpness. Very nice light.

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on November 26, 2010 at 10:54 PM

He does look proud. Great image, Steve. I like the light a lot.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on November 27, 2010 at 12:01 AM

Excellent shot Steve, great head turn and I like the food item. I was thinking you probably could have blurred the bg a little more and still gotten all the bird sharp with a little less dof.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on November 27, 2010 at 8:31 PM

Thank you so much, everyone. Fine comments as usual. I found it curious that several of you found the large version to be sharper than the small. The only difference from my viewpoint was the jpeg compression. It was the same image for both. Also, I agree with Nate. Maybe less dof would have been better here. However, I'm happy to err on the side of too much dof (I've lost so many shots because of inadequate dof).

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments