American Kestrel - Face On

From the same series as my earlier post. It is rare to get a face-on view of these shy birds. Sadly, image is a bit soft.

Beautiful bird with lovely colors in a great setting.

Beautiful little bird. Thanks for sharing it.

I've only seen one in the wild ... just a gorgeous species. I'm trying out a new contact lens prescription today so I can't speak to this being soft but it looks pretty darn good to me as is. Nice work Daniel.

It's still a nice shot and really shows off the unique markings and coloration of this bird. Thanks for sharing.

Work on it some more Daniel, great image but as you mention it is a bit soft.

Aside from the softness of the image, I like the composition. The bird really stands out from the background. I noticed this on your last post as well but it looks like the point of focus was in front of the bird. This seems to be what is creating the softness in the image. There are times when it is hard to select the best auto focus point that works with the composition. You might consider using live view to zoom in to the area that you want to be in focus and then focusing manually--that is of course if you have the time. I know you don't always have this luxury when photographing birds or wildlife.

Very pretty bird! I don't think I've even seen one before. If you think that there is a chance the lens AF is out of alignment, Canon should fine tune it once for free or any future body like the 50d, 7d, 5d ii and up will have AF fine tune in camera. Sadly the 40d doesn't have that feature. I need to find some good bird spots besides Holla Bend to test my new lens. Any recommendations?

there are a few spots around Conway that might be nice Aaron. I'd be glad to show you around a little.