Saturday (04-October-2008) — California

Gone to See America October 2008 Road Trip. Yosemite National Park.

Red Headed Woodpecker. As I drove through Yosemite Valley on the way to Curry Village to join the Nikonians group for ANPAT 8, I noticed this Red Headed Woodpecker (Northern Pileated Woodpecker) on a dead tree. I stopped and realized that it was loading acorns into the tree for winter. I didn’t know that these woodpeckers also lived in California.

Red Headed Woodpecker (Northern Pileated Woodpecker). Loading acorns in a dead tree for winter in Yosemite Valley. (David J Mathre)
Red Headed Woodpecker (Northern Pileated Woodpecker). Image taken with a Nikon D300 camera and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 200, 400 mm, f/8, 1/640 sec). (David J Mathre)

Author: David Mathre

I am a scientist by training (Eckerd College, BSc; Caltech, Ph.D.). I worked for 27 years as a Chemist in the Pharmaceutical Industry developing processes to manufacture medicines for human and animal health. I now spend my time as a photographer and world traveler. My interests include the natural world, wildlife, landscapes, sky, and seascapes, travel, and astrophotography. I look for unique ways of viewing the world and presenting my images. I have traveled to over 55 countries in six continents, often on Semester at Sea voyages. While at home in New Jersey, I spend time on home renovation and expansion of a wildflower garden/meadow.

4 thoughts on “Saturday (04-October-2008) — California”

  1. What is with the background? Was it removed, blown out, or sharpened? The branches at the top right of the image are distracting from the wonderful texture of the wood and nuts.

    Also is photo info stripped at some point in this process? If not should we look into having that extracted and posted along with the entry as Meta information?

    -hans

  2. The image was significantly cropped from the original, in which the tree and bird were very dark with the sky blown out. In order to see the tree with the cached nuts and bird did some single image HDR using Capture One, then in Photoshop used Focus Magic and Topaz Define to bring out the detail. In the process the chromatic aberration from the lens was enhanced, especially in the branches at the top. I have now removed the branches using Photoshop Content aware.

    When I checked the image in the PhotoShelter archive, most of the original IPTC and EXIF metadata is still with the image. What info is missing, and I will watch with each processing step in the future to see where it may be stripped out.

  3. That looks better without the branches.

    As for the data, all that I saw from the download, and anything that the web server would see is the IPTC contact info and copyright info. Also it seem has striped the date info, only the file name contains that info.

    -hans

  4. Just checked your photo and my Lilly photo and they both had exif info about the camera, shot, and date/time in PhotoShelter. So that would mean that photoshelter is stipping it when it displays the photo on a remote site. I’ll see if we can get the meta info when we pull the image across.

    -hans

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