Corn Bunting

Corn Bunting, one from early May of this year, photographed with the 7D this time, any views on the comp would be appreciated.

Processed in DPP / CS2

7D, 500F4IS+1.4T/c, Gitzo, Wimberley
1/250th @ F5.6 +2/3rds iso800

All comments most welcome and thanks for looking.

Andy...

Hi Andy


lovely setting pose and background

the birds head looks a bit soft to me though., maybe another round of USM ? would also like to see it it bit lower in the frame to give it head room.

I think I'd prefer the shot composed so the subject was a little lower but that doesn't detract from the shot at all as it's a lovely portrait. Wish it was in my collection.

Simon

Another vote for a little lower in the frame Andy.

Great BKGR and nice to see it singing its heart out.

Cheers

Austin

Superb image, nice perch, good bg & nicely composed..

Lee

Thanks for the comments guys

As for the sharpness, this was one of only seven shots that were relatively sharp at a 100% out of about 80 or so shots, not a particularly good ratio but then thats my 7D. The focus point was firmly locked onto the buntings head, so with that in mind would you say that the breast of the bunt is sharper than the head ?

If that is indeed the case, then do I have front focussing issues with this set up ?

Any help with this matter would be appreciated.

Andy...

Buy a Nikon

Send the 7d back with big complaints and tell em you want it sorted, but that aside I like the shot, very nice clean background.

I agree send it back if you are not happy but nice image and bg is great

The body of the bird definitely looks sharper to me than the head Andy. Agree about the bird being lower in the frame. A1 background.

Cheers guys

Andy...

Camera issues aside,love the composition and the birds pose,singing into the frame works really well for me Andy,wonderful colours

I think the head is the sharpest and agree with the "bit lower " crit.
Not many of these around here these days though.
JohnR

Difficult to tell with only a small jpg to go on, but in my opinion there is nothing to suggest front or back focusing. I would suggest that the image could stand a little more sharpening and that would give it a bit more "bite", but shooting at f5.6 with a 1.4x teleconverter is not going to produce the sharpest possible images.

Which AF mode are you using? Single point manual selection is the only mode that is reliable in my experience with this camera. I have also found that that the AF does not always produce images that are critically sharp when the subject is rather distant (close to infinity) and that AF performance (in terms of producing critically sharp images) is also affected by using teleconverters. This reduced AF performance with teleconverters is not really something that I've noticed with other Canon cameras.

NIce corn bunting, but the flat green bg is not really my taste

Cheers guys, thanks for the comments

Hi Phil,

I use single point manual selection, all the other focus point permutations give very poor results, I get consistently better results from the 1D3 with the converter than I do with the 7D, even when shooting at f5.6.

Thanks for the advice, i'll give it a go without the converter.

Andy...