Black-headed Woodpeckers +Repost

Gallery: AvianPosted March 3, 2011238 views18 comments

Here's another shot from our Thailand tour. This is a species that I had never seen or photographed before and is quite localized. This was taken at Huai Kha Keang Wildlife Sanctuary. The 3 woodpeckers were all feeding on insects or grubs from this tree. The one at the bottom right with the red on the crest is a male and the other 2 are females. He is not quite as sharp because he was moving. This is cropped to about 85% of the frame with a sliver taken off both the top and bottom.

This was a difficult capture as there wasn't much light and I needed a fair bit of depth of field to get all 3 sharp. Out of about 50 images I took there were 3 or 4 where all of them were reasonably sharp, this had the best poses of the 3. It kind of made me wish I had a Nikon D3s so I could have shot it at 2000 iso and not worried about noise.

MkIII 500F4 1.4x 1/80 F9, iso 800, evaluative metering at 0, Feisol 3372 rapid tripod with Wimberley head.

Comments

18 comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on March 3, 2011 at 9:44 PM

This is a really interesting and colorful "family" shot of a very different bird, Nate. Wonderful composition!! I'm not troubled by the sharpness. However, it could use more "pop"...and a little more sharpening would be o.k. too. The suggestions of Manoj look reasonable to me.

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

Comment posted by Manoj Vallati on March 3, 2011 at 9:56 PM

Beautiful birds, this is the first time am witnessing this species..
For the photo you can boost the contrast , sharpen a bit on the birds and increase the vibrance a bit..Photo is missing a little contrast in my opinion..
Interesting behavior captured :)

Registered on February 24, 2011, 49 Posts, 148 Comments

Comment posted by KC Choo on March 3, 2011 at 9:57 PM

I have not seen this Woodpecker either - a beauty indeed! A bit of contrast as suggested seems good.

Registered on November 15, 2004, 519 Posts, 8278 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on March 3, 2011 at 9:57 PM

Thanks for your comments Manoj and Steve, I've added a curves adjustment and sharpened it a little bit more, I do think it's an improvement. I had gotten away from checking each image to see if a curves adjustment helps.

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

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on March 3, 2011 at 10:53 PM

Beautiful birds, and all in good poses.
Seems from here a little faded out, so maybe a little more contrast is called for?
Nice BG and tree.
Sounds as if you guys had a great time in Thailand!
Sandy

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on March 3, 2011 at 11:31 PM

Repost looks much better, Nate!

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

Comment posted by richard remington on March 4, 2011 at 7:21 AM

Nate,

Really nice look at some rarely seen birds. This is a real treat for me.

Rick

Registered on March 12, 2010, 105 Posts, 368 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on March 4, 2011 at 7:50 AM

The boost in contrast brings the color of the birds out better. This image IMHO is very interesting with the 3 birds in slightly dffierent positions. For some reason it reminds me of some of Audubons works. Thanks very much for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on March 4, 2011 at 8:10 AM

Fine job of getting all three in focus Nate, especially with the low light.
I agree, the three poses make it a wonderful capture.
Nicely done on the repost, a good improvement..
Well done!

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments

Comment posted by Fabio Giarrizzo on March 4, 2011 at 8:35 AM

Great shot of a very interesting species- Excellent job on composition and DOF, maybe you could try to increase the contrast selectively with the birds and trunk- well done, Fabio

Registered on December 3, 2010, 90 Posts, 1614 Comments

Comment posted by Angela McCain on March 4, 2011 at 9:07 AM

Really nice, especially the repost. How wonderful to get all 3 of these birds with eyes showing. Well done.

Registered on April 19, 2009, 367 Posts, 3589 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Hackley on March 4, 2011 at 10:30 AM

Good job getting all three in focus, not very easy to do. The composition looks great and I like the repost contrast much better, excellent shot, way to go Nate.

Registered on September 17, 2009, 302 Posts, 5535 Comments

Comment posted by S Govindarajan on March 4, 2011 at 1:15 PM

Neat image, Nate. Repost looks better. Love the different pose of each woodpecker. The tree is a great focal point for the image and your composition works well.

Registered on April 19, 2008, 115 Posts, 1921 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on March 4, 2011 at 6:24 PM

The repost really gets the job done. I really like the poses of the upper two birds. It looks like they were communicating about something, did you observe any other actions suggesting that this was a dominance display?

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on March 4, 2011 at 6:32 PM

Thanks for your comments.

Mark, I don't think this was a dominance display but I'm no expert on woodpecker behavior. They were definetly feeding while this was going on.

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

Comment posted by Charlie VanTassel on March 5, 2011 at 11:56 PM

Very cool, Nate.

A nice collection of poses and that green color really pops.

Registered on October 18, 2006, 644 Posts, 4801 Comments

Comment posted by May Haga on March 6, 2011 at 8:27 AM

Very interesting shot Nate. Three birds on one tree amazing. I do like the repost a bit better.
May

Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on March 7, 2011 at 4:32 AM

Great to have the three birds in one image with clear heads and eyes for all three. Nice background, too. I like the repost better, but to me also it still seems a little foggy or something, not to do with sharpness, which is fine, but an overall look.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments