Taken during a stroll. I heard the bird working on the wood and found it finally, as a silhouette against the sky.
All comments welcome.
Is this a composite: No
Olympus Stylus 1, 300mm (35mm eq.), f2.8, 1/250sec. ISO 100
Woodpeckers always seem to go on the other side of the trunk whenever I point a lens at one so good job with this. The blue bg is pretty wonderful and something you don’t often see in a forest shot. The big heavy branches above the bird overwhelm it a bit for me, but they might be hard to do anything about. Maybe crop the top most ones out? It leaves the bird higher in the shot though and you might not want that. The slice of light on its belly is pretty terrific.
Hans, I like the strong silhouetting against the blue sky. There’s a fine peaceful mood here. It would be nice to not have the branch coming in from the left, but you’d need a longer lens to do that… You might also crop to a vertical.
Thank you, @Kris_Smith and @Mark_Seaver !
The best way to avoid the problems that you mention would have been to reposition myself, while capturing the woodpecker. It was difficult to get an unobstructed view through the branches and of course the bird flew away after the first 2 attempts while I was moving to a, hopefully, better spot.
I tried to crop to a vertical, before I uploaded this first version, but I don’t like it.
Kristen, as you predicted already, I prefer not to get the bird higher in the frame. But an option can be to remove the (more or less in focus) branch coming in from the left, see rework. That leaves your comments about the big branches above the bird, but the distracting branch at the left edge is gone.
What a difference removing that little branch made. The proportions are more harmonious now and the bird seems larger or at least proportionally more even with the tree it’s on. Nice.
I like the photo Han, especially how the silhouette of the bird and the silhouette of the tree branches have similar features and harmony.
