D500 W/ 200 - 500 Couple More Pileated Woodpeckers

FreemanB · Jan 4, 2018

I'm a tad obsessed with getting a perfect shot of these beautiful creatures. I'm getting closer

, at least that's what I'm telling myself. One photo is taken during the golden hour, and the other was captured in the most beautiful light. The bokeh on the latter photo was weird, and I was forced to crop a great deal. This park is a national forest with large old growth trees. The trees are large enough to make these birds look small.

Golden hour A-framed

Pure sunlight, but some strange bokeh and small branches made me crop this one severely.

Thanks for checking these out!

--
-Freeman

crazygold · Jan 4, 2018

sweet Freeman

arniebook · Jan 4, 2018

Beautiful captures! Very sharp.

Those birds are a rare sight here. You are fortunate to have opportunities like that.

FreemanB · Jan 4, 2018

Thanks Arnie!

Seems about a decade ago, there was a confirmed sighting of at least one ivory billed woodpecker in the swamps of Arkansas. Another scientist was positive he spotted some in Louisiana I think? Pearl River if I recall. There were many pileated woodpecker sightings, but his video footage of the ivory billed was not confirmed.

Jimusny · Jan 4, 2018

FreeLB said:
Thanks Arnie!

Seems about a decade ago, there was a confirmed sighting of at least one ivory billed woodpecker in the swamps of Arkansas. Another scientist was positive he spotted some in Louisiana I think? Pearl River if I recall. There were many pileated woodpecker sightings, but his video footage of the ivory billed was not confirmed.

FreemanB · Jan 4, 2018

Thanks Jim

larrywilson · Jan 5, 2018

We do have some Pileated here in western Oregon, but don't see them on a regular bases. Very lovely bird and a good sized woody. Yes these are good images.

My suggestion if I may:

The first image has a lot noise when viewed at 100%. I think if you could of lowered your exposure from 1/4000 to 1/1000 at an iso of 400 you would have a lot less noise in the image. I am not really much of a pixel peeper and some noise is plenty good for printing a good size image.

It looks a though you may have blurred the background on the second image and I do like the image a lot.

Good work.

Larry

FreemanB · Jan 5, 2018

larrywilson said:
We do have some Pileated here in western Oregon, but don't see them on a regular bases. Very lovely bird and a good sized woody. Yes these are good images.

My suggestion if I may:

The first image has a lot noise when viewed at 100%. I think if you could of lowered your exposure from 1/4000 to 1/1000 at an iso of 400 you would have a lot less noise in the image. I am not really much of a pixel peeper and some noise is plenty good for printing a good size image.

It looks a though you may have blurred the background on the second image and I do like the image a lot.

Good work.

Larry

Thanks Larry, I appreciate your comments.

SarahTerra · Jan 11, 2018

Cool bird, but If i could offer some small critique:

Personally, id recommend easing up on the post a little. Try just adjusting color, shadow, and highlight and nothing else whenever possible. The "fake bokeh" blur you've added is quite disruptive to the shot, you can literally see where you painted with your brush...don't feel bad, many a photographer have done this, myself included.

Another option is to get a full frame body if more bokeh is the effect you are after.

It's a well executed and clean shot just ...unnatural....

If you print that shot you would see why a re edit would be needed

FreemanB · Jan 12, 2018

SarahTerra said:
Cool bird, but If i could offer some small critique:

Personally, id recommend easing up on the post a little. Try just adjusting color, shadow, and highlight and nothing else whenever possible. The "fake bokeh" blur you've added is quite disruptive to the shot, you can literally see where you painted with your brush...don't feel bad, many a photographer have done this, myself included.

Another option is to get a full frame body if more bokeh is the effect you are after.

It's a well executed and clean shot just ...unnatural....

If you print that shot you would see why a re edit would be needed

Huh?

No fake bokeh was added. One shot was taken in golden hour, and it was backlit. That photo was not very good.

The other photo, the sun was shining on the woodpecker. For exposure, little processing was needed. This photo had a small branch that was removed and I cropped it to the size you see. In the OP, I mentioned there was an odd bokeh effect. Because of the crop, that effect was minimized to the point a small amount of cloning was needed.

Thanks for your thoughts.

--
-Freeman

Jimusny · Jan 12, 2018

FreeLB said:
SarahTerra said:

Cool bird, but If i could offer some small critique:

Personally, id recommend easing up on the post a little. Try just adjusting color, shadow, and highlight and nothing else whenever possible. The "fake bokeh" blur you've added is quite disruptive to the shot, you can literally see where you painted with your brush...don't feel bad, many a photographer have done this, myself included.

Another option is to get a full frame body if more bokeh is the effect you are after.

It's a well executed and clean shot just ...unnatural....

If you print that shot you would see why a re edit would be needed

Click to expand...

Huh?

No fake bokeh was added. One shot was taken in golden hour, and it was backlit. That photo was not very good.

The other photo, the sun was shining on the woodpecker. For exposure, little processing was needed. This photo had a small branch that was removed and I cropped it to the size you see. In the OP, I mentioned there was an odd bokeh effect. Because of the crop, that effect was minimized to the point a small amount of cloning was needed.

Thanks for your thoughts.

SarahTerra · Jan 12, 2018

No about 1 inch surrounding the bird in the second shot clearly, extra blur or noise reduction was added.,, you can literally see where the brush strokes are. Could also be that excessive sharpening was added around the bird....

It is extremely obvious, and lots of photographers try to do this in order to "cheat" in order to make the shot look better.

Just as often, it backfires which unfortunately is what happened in this case as in this case.

I'm not trying to be insulting....

It's like if we are at dinner and you have mustard on your chin, tidy it up bud.

if no one tells you, they aren't doing you any favours.

If you don't believe me, print the second shot on an 11x14...you'll immediately see the problem

crazygold · Jan 12, 2018

"I'm not trying to be insulting"

really? you for all intent are calling Freeman a liar,if anyone should shape up it's you. Perhaps go see someone to learn to keep your NPD in check.

SarahTerra · Jan 13, 2018

crazygold said:
"I'm not trying to be insulting"

really? you for all intent are calling Freeman a liar,if anyone should shape up it's you. Perhaps go see someone to learn to keep your NPD in check.

HI there, instead of throwing a tantrum like a little baby and throwing insults around, how about you take a big deep breath, put on your big boy pants and enjoy a nice dose of reality:

You can literally see the brush strokes...

I politely offered a suggestion to correct this, as the image itself is 100% fixable and there is no need for such aggressive post processing. If everyone pats him on the back without mentioning it, he will not even know the mistake he is making and continue to post images like this with his signature on them.

The shot is well done, it's a nice bird

...its just that his editing is poorly executed in this case.

briantilley · Jan 13, 2018

SarahTerra said:
No about 1 inch surrounding the bird in the second shot clearly, extra blur or noise reduction was added.,, you can literally see where the brush strokes are. Could also be that excessive sharpening was added around the bird....

It is extremely obvious, and lots of photographers try to do this in order to "cheat" in order to make the shot look better.

Just as often, it backfires which unfortunately is what happened in this case as in this case.

I'm not trying to be insulting....

True - we can see that it comes naturally to you.

SarahTerra said:
It's like if we are at dinner and you have mustard on your chin, tidy it up bud.

if no one tells you, they aren't doing you any favours.

If you don't believe me, print the second shot on an 11x14...you'll immediately see the problem

seanofford · Jan 13, 2018

briantilley said:
SarahTerra said:

No about 1 inch surrounding the bird in the second shot clearly, extra blur or noise reduction was added.,, you can literally see where the brush strokes are. Could also be that excessive sharpening was added around the bird....

It is extremely obvious, and lots of photographers try to do this in order to "cheat" in order to make the shot look better.

Just as often, it backfires which unfortunately is what happened in this case as in this case.

I'm not trying to be insulting....

Click to expand...

True - we can see that it comes naturally to you.

briantilley said:

It's like if we are at dinner and you have mustard on your chin, tidy it up bud.

if no one tells you, they aren't doing you any favours.

If you don't believe me, print the second shot on an 11x14...you'll immediately see the problem

Click to expand...

Sarah Terra was not rude and her comments are accurate. I'm assuming the OP would like constructive criticism which is why they posted the shots. I sometimes hate how quick people are to take offence on here. Just take a deep breath and count to 10 before you post...

Sean

briantilley · Jan 13, 2018

seanofford said:
briantilley said:

SarahTerra said:

No about 1 inch surrounding the bird in the second shot clearly, extra blur or noise reduction was added.,, you can literally see where the brush strokes are. Could also be that excessive sharpening was added around the bird....

It is extremely obvious, and lots of photographers try to do this in order to "cheat" in order to make the shot look better.

Just as often, it backfires which unfortunately is what happened in this case as in this case.

I'm not trying to be insulting....

Click to expand...

True - we can see that it comes naturally to you.

seanofford said:

It's like if we are at dinner and you have mustard on your chin, tidy it up bud.

if no one tells you, they aren't doing you any favours.

If you don't believe me, print the second shot on an 11x14...you'll immediately see the problem

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Sarah Terra was not rude and her comments are accurate. I'm assuming the OP would like constructive criticism which is why they posted the shots.

SarahTerra basically accused the OP of applying "fake blur", and continued to insist that it was "obvious", even after the OP had denied doing so.

Even if not rude or insulting, that certainly seems unwelcome.

seanofford said:
I sometimes hate how quick people are to take offence on here. Just take a deep breath and count to 10 before you post...

Having read many of her argumentative posts on DPR, I'd say that Sarah could usefully heed that advice.

SarahTerra · Jan 13, 2018

briantilley said:
seanofford said:

briantilley said:

SarahTerra said:

No about 1 inch surrounding the bird in the second shot clearly, extra blur or noise reduction was added.,, you can literally see where the brush strokes are. Could also be that excessive sharpening was added around the bird....

It is extremely obvious, and lots of photographers try to do this in order to "cheat" in order to make the shot look better.

Just as often, it backfires which unfortunately is what happened in this case as in this case.

I'm not trying to be insulting....

Click to expand...

True - we can see that it comes naturally to you.

briantilley said:

It's like if we are at dinner and you have mustard on your chin, tidy it up bud.

if no one tells you, they aren't doing you any favours.

If you don't believe me, print the second shot on an 11x14...you'll immediately see the problem

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Sarah Terra was not rude and her comments are accurate. I'm assuming the OP would like constructive criticism which is why they posted the shots.

Click to expand...

SarahTerra basically accused the OP of applying "fake blur", and continued to insist that it was "obvious", even after the OP had denied doing so.

And then I posted a crop clearly showing the issue was not a fabrication.....was trying to save him embarrassment, that's all. I even admitted that I have done this same thing myself for pete's sake...

briantilley said:
Even if not rude or insulting, that certainly seems unwelcome.

briantilley said:

I sometimes hate how quick people are to take offence on here. Just take a deep breath and count to 10 before you post...

Click to expand...

Having read many of her argumentative posts on DPR, I'd say that Sarah could usefully heed that advice.

I get it...so this is about you not liking my political views, and engaging in active hostility. Seems you are following me around and checking my post history so you can bring it up in unrelated discussions...

I'd like to apologize to the OP for him getting dragged into this mess. This argument is about politics, and the rampant trolling around here, not his photo skills.

tom graham · Jan 13, 2018

ST - brush strokes all along on left side of tree? If not there, where?

Perhaps related to OP post - I have occasionally in PP cloned out a real, actual, "funny" looking area because to me screamed cloning. So I cloned it some to look more natural. Perhaps same with OP, funny looking but real - accept it as he says.

And please don't call people liars.

Tom

crazygold · Jan 13, 2018

"And then I posted a crop clearly showing the issue was not a fabrication.....was trying to save him embarrassment, that's all. I even admitted that I have done this same thing myself for pete's sake..."

So your still saying what Freeman said wasn't so? oooookkkkkkk

"I get it...so this is about you not liking my political views, and engaging in active hostility. Seems you are following me around and checking my post history so you can bring it up in unrelated discussions..."

No Sarah,it's nothing at all about politics,it's about your ego,it's about you thinking everyone is below you,it's about you frankly being nasty towards many here on the forum. It's about you,how you treat others,how you bash others,how your conceive yourself to be above all others,how you will not admit to being wrong,how you come across as being a know it all,how better skilled you are then many here,yet you haven't proved this one bit,you boast a lot but proof is within the pudding,there isn't a bit of that to be seen. What you lack however is people skills,you lack humbleness(did I just make this word up?)you lack integrity. The only embarrassment going on here is your own. No one else owns the hostility here but yourself.

"I'd like to apologize to the OP for him getting dragged into this mess. This argument is about politics, and the rampant trolling around here, not his photo skills"

Oh no need for that Sarah,however a sincere apology is called for about questioning Freemans integrity,and admitting your wrong.

I have learned thru life,that people at the top of their games,are very humble folks,they need not have to prove or boast about anything as the results tell all,they teach,and critique yes,but in a mannerism that is way opposite your own,they are RESPECTED because of this. Now mind you,you may have good(photo) skills,but,all I have seen is you talk the talk,but not walk the walk. You can respond by bashing me,call me names,whatever,that's ok I'll forgive you,but be aware it only proves what I said in my last post,as well as what a true jackass you are making of yourself. Robert

D500 W/ 200 - 500 Couple More Pileated Woodpeckers

Senior Member

Leading Member

Veteran Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Veteran Member

Senior Member

Well-known member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Well-known member

Leading Member

Well-known member

Veteran Member

Leading Member

Veteran Member

Well-known member

Senior Member

Leading Member

Similar threads

Keyboard shortcuts