Red-breasted Sapsucker

Hi Michael! Welcome to NatureScapes and thanks for the support. This is a really cool bird and a nicely composed image of it! The image seems to be a bit too contrasty but I bet some of that is due to the scanning process. I love the green background and the red on the bird is glowing.

Michael, let me extend my welcome as well to NSN, in time you'll meet all the inmates of this Bird Forum Asylum were "obsession" is a natural state of mind, But, I, better warn you that feather soup is utterly addictive and can destroy in weeks a well stocked bank account, It can also lay to waste and dissolve egos as easily as the "Dip" does away with Toons in ToonTown !!
Get your exposure book out, learn your levels, and massage the contrast just a bit, mix your chroma well and just come and play!!! Unsharp mask is just waiting around the corner to bite you in the back!!!!

Lovely bird I have never met, would have liked him slightly higher in frame showing his full tail and with a little less contrast, the colors look a tad saturated by looking at the greens, and a touch of USM could have helped as well!!
(I warned you about Unsharp Mask) Congrats!!!

Michael, Welcome and thank you for posting. This is a great first post. You got a nice profile here with a smoothe OOF BG. Looks a little over saturated and a bit soft. The softness is probably due to the 1/40 shutter speed. Some fill flash would really help with getting detail in the blacks.

Look forward to more of your work.

Welcome to NSN....it's a great place to learn. I've never seen or heard of this sapsucker before. Great suggestions have been made and you're off to a good running start.

Welcome aboard - a cool bird well composed and as the others have said, quite a bit too contrasty losing all detail in the darker parts.

Michael,

I love the pose and composition to this. The background is killer.

I did some PhotoShop manipulation of your image and was able to bring out the detail in the blacks. I suspect that the scan is the culprit making the image look too contrasty.

Since you didn't indicate that reposts are welcome I haven't reposted the image. If you would like to see what I did and how I did it, please let me know.

Bill Whala wrote:Michael,

I love the pose and composition to this. The background is killer.

I did some PhotoShop manipulation of your image and was able to bring out the detail in the blacks. I suspect that the scan is the culprit making the image look too contrasty.

Since you didn't indicate that reposts are welcome I haven't reposted the image. If you would like to see what I did and how I did it, please let me know.

Yes by all means repost it! Part of the problem, I think, is in the scan. Actually make that scans. Right now the only (affordable) way for me to get my 35mm slides on to the computer is to take them to the local pro lab and get prints made from them and then scan those on the flatbed that I have access to here at school I have resolved to change that and invest in a film scanner (suggestions are MORE than welcome). Looking at the original slide, there really is more detail showing in the head and back (although the head is still quite saturated and back dark). I tried to use some more USM but I was getting a halo effect around the bird.

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I'm really learning a lot from this group already. I agree that a little fill flash would have helped the contrast. Unfortunately with the Maxxum 7 body, the only way to turn the flash on or off is by attaching and detaching the flash gun. This makes it a real hassle and I just didn't have it handy at the time. Lesson #1 you can't use your equipment if you don't have it with you!

Thanks again!

Michael

In PhotoShop 7 I:
- Reduced saturation by going into Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and put -50 in saturation.

- I then went to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and gave Brightness a +10 and Contrast +10.

- I gave it a couple shots of USM at 100, .2, 0 then used the blur tool to reduce the halo effect.

This still isn't perfect but you can get an idea what can be done. Also see if the Pro Lab will scan your slides. The scan from the slide will match the slide closer than scanning a print.

I hope this helps.