On the plus side - WOW what a bird to have in your garden ! - makes our chaffinch look positively dull and boring!
With some adjustemnt to technique etc you could have some stunning images to follow in the near future, here are my immediate thoughts
Subject wise, you could improve the shot by placing a twig or similar as a perch over the feeding dish/station with the aim of getting the bunting to settle on a more natural branch before dropping down to feed. - the scattered seed is very distracting and draws your eye away from the subject as it stands. Also a bird crunching away at seed is ungainly, all seed eating birds are messy feeders!
Image quality wise, without wanting to state the obvious it is very soft, but I am not not sure if that is down to lens quality, or technique - ie unsteady tripod or just too slow a shutter speed;
This was taken at 1/80s - the normal "rule of thumb" formula using telephoto lenses is 1/effective focal length ie the shutter speed should have been nearer 1/750s (1/500mm x 1.6 crop factor) to prevent camera shake
The image softness is probably down to camera shake but without further technical info of equipment used it is difficult to be more precise
Discussion
5 repliesA frequent visitor to my feeding station in Kansas. Makes a change from E Sussex.
Canon 350D ISO 400 500mm f/6.3 1/80th sec using a tripod with the lens through camo sheet.
Shot in RAW processed through lightroom and cropped and resized at the fifth attempt to posting size. I'll get there in the end.
Critique and comments please
Thanks
Barry
With some adjustemnt to technique etc you could have some stunning images to follow in the near future, here are my immediate thoughts
Subject wise, you could improve the shot by placing a twig or similar as a perch over the feeding dish/station with the aim of getting the bunting to settle on a more natural branch before dropping down to feed. - the scattered seed is very distracting and draws your eye away from the subject as it stands. Also a bird crunching away at seed is ungainly, all seed eating birds are messy feeders!
Image quality wise, without wanting to state the obvious it is very soft, but I am not not sure if that is down to lens quality, or technique - ie unsteady tripod or just too slow a shutter speed;
This was taken at 1/80s - the normal "rule of thumb" formula using telephoto lenses is 1/effective focal length ie the shutter speed should have been nearer 1/750s (1/500mm x 1.6 crop factor) to prevent camera shake
The image softness is probably down to camera shake but without further technical info of equipment used it is difficult to be more precise
It looks like the camera is focusing slightly in front of the bird as his beak looks sharper than his head.
Paul
Looking forward to more pics of this species.
Cheers