Noah, looks like you did the best with what you had. As Bruce said they tend to light and set where thay want. In your backyard you may be able to control it to some degree by what you give them to set on. In this case it looks like an apple tree and not picking but looks like it could use some pruning. The light direction is good, I usually get branches and backlighting, or shadows.
Posted by Philip Schwarz on February 22, 2009 at 11:37 PM
Dido on what the others have said. I think the colors on the Blue Jay are off a little bit. I've found it hard to get a shot of them. Up until this year I had only a couple of pictures but for some reason they have been posing this year. It still takes a lot of shots to get a clear shot at one.
Posted by Steve Foss on February 23, 2009 at 2:31 PM
A very nice pose, noah, in very nice light. Ditto on what others said about the comp, but for an environmental grab shot, this is excellent.
Jays love corn and peanuts, and one way to get them to land where you want them is to set up a small feeder stocked with those and put up a single, uncluttered perch with a fairly distant background and in nice light, making sure the perch is behind the feeder so the bird will face the camera when landing on the perch.
Discussion
6 repliesSlight crop.
Critique very welcome :D
Jays love corn and peanuts, and one way to get them to land where you want them is to set up a small feeder stocked with those and put up a single, uncluttered perch with a fairly distant background and in nice light, making sure the perch is behind the feeder so the bird will face the camera when landing on the perch.