Blue Jay

Gallery: AvianPosted February 1, 2010116 views8 comments

Taken at Peace Valley Park near Doylestown, PA in mid-January on a bitter cold day with my Nikon D50, shutter 1/100, f/6.3, exposure -1.00, ISO 200, 150-500 telephoto, focal length 400mm.
Working real hard on the birds and have found NPN the best for critiques, welcome any and all feedback on this shot
What do I like? - glint in the eye, position of the bird although I wish I had gotten a shot showing the tail, color
Thanks for your time

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Peter Langman on February 1, 2010 at 6:18 PM

This is a nice shot with good detail. I have been trying for years to get a decent shot of a Blue Jay they are hard to get well done.

Registered on February 16, 2008, 18 Posts, 20 Comments

Comment posted by Sharon Hallowell on February 1, 2010 at 8:12 PM

Nice shot of this jay showing off it's lovely blue colors. The belly and feet look sharper than the head, maybe due to a little motion. If you increase your shutter speed a little that may help, but not sure how far you can push the ISO with your camera and lens.
Are you from the D-town area? I'm not far from there and when I started out, I spent a lot of time at Peace Valley....there are tons of birds there with a nice variety. Sharon

Registered on November 1, 2003, 392 Posts, 4810 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Gulash on February 1, 2010 at 9:27 PM

It's difficult getting an unobstructed view of these guys, good job. I might prefer a bit more room on the top and bottom for a less panoramic view. Interesting light, it doesn't feel cold.

Registered on January 28, 2005, 879 Posts, 12098 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on February 2, 2010 at 7:09 AM

Sue,

There is some softness in the jay, that may have been from the slow shutter speed. If you use aperture priority, turn off auto ISO in the settings then you could have bumped the ISO up to even as much as ISO 400 and gotten faster shutter speed and perhaps frozen the little bit of motion blur.

I like the painterly feel to the background and the eye contact you got from the Jay.

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on February 2, 2010 at 10:51 AM

Nice capture. The light on the bird is pretty nice. You didn't indicate if you used fill flash. I think that would have helped here. The brighter branch at the top of the frame pulls my eyes away from the bird.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on February 2, 2010 at 11:20 AM

Nice image of this jay Sue, some fill flash would have helped to fill in the shadows and brighten the darker areas of the bird. The issue with the relative softness of the head could have been either motion blur from low shutter speed or needing a little more depth of field, either way increasing your iso would help there, although that may bring more noise into the image.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Cheryl Molennor on February 3, 2010 at 10:33 PM

I used to live in Chalfont PA not far from Doylestown.

This is a great capture of what I think to be a beautiful looking bird. I can't really tell about the sharpness in this small image but looks like you got it. I too have been working on getting one of these in my collection.I like your dof choice and the nice natural perch

Registered on June 30, 2009, 300 Posts, 5051 Comments

Comment posted by Kenneth Arni on February 12, 2010 at 6:52 AM

I really like the color and the catch light in the eye Sue, also like the background. like the composition. I think that was good advice about taking the ISO off auto and see how far up you can go before you get noise. I can get my Nikon to go to 400 ISO with no problem.

Registered on December 24, 2008, 112 Posts, 629 Comments