Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I captured this male downy woodpecker near our suet block this morning. This is the smallest of the various woodpeckers we see here. They’re fun to look at… a little hard to find one holding still for very long.
Specific Feedback
Cropping? Since he’s almost head-on I didn’t see the need to give him a huge amount of taking off space on the right.
Technical Details
Z9, 180-600 lens, Nikon 1.4 TC, monopod, 1/1250th, f 9.0, 1260mm, ISO 10000, cropped to 2183 x 2514.
Nice pose with lots of incipient energy, Dave. The bird looks a bit soft-might be either the high iso or if he was already moving it could be some motion blur. Birds this small move awfully fast when they take off. The light looks pretty harsh on the side of the bird-sometimes you can tame it with the highlight and shadow sliders.
I love that look in the eye here Dave. I think the brightness has cost you some detail in the side feathers. These are such beautiful little woodpeckers. You’ve got the full range with your pileated and this one. The iso 10000 seems pretty high here. That may have contributed to the brightness issue. You may want to consider using a minus exposure value to help compensate?
