Black-capped Chickadee

Hi All,

I've been spending a fair amount of time this fall making images of birds visiting my backyard. Tonight I'm sharing this image of a black-capped chickadee that was perched in one of my crabapple trees a couple weeks back.

This forum has always been dominated by landscape images from around the midwest. But bear with me for awhile as I share some of my avian images as we work toward the new year.

Thanks for looking.

I'm not an expert on avian photography but I know a good image when I see one. The shallow DOF really helps isolate the bird from the background and I like the color provided by the berries. Very nice.

Very nice. I know avian shots require the right equipment. Please share what you used and the settings.

Great photo, I know how difficult it is to get this just right and the red berries give it a holiday feel.

Thanks for the nice comments everyone. Jan here are the shooting techs:

50D, 100 - 400L @ 275 (EFL = 440 mm), f/6.3, 1/320 sec, ISO 320

Tripod mounted, IS off, AF center point only, subject distance about 20'

Wayne,

Nice clarity on the shot. I have these in my backyard as well and really enjoy watching them out the kitchen window at the bird feeder.

I agree with Tom, the berries make it Christmas Card perfect!

Okay, now were you going for that target on the shutter? Perhaps from past sucessful shots? Just curious. Twenty feet is still fairly close to a wild bird, and I assume you were working quickly to get the shot. I have no birding experience!

Wayne,
Really good composition on this one. The horizontal branch in relation to the diagonal branch and bird make this a really interesting photo.

Nice Wayne,

From someone that knows not much about bird photography, the chickadee looks very nice, good exposure and focus. My only nitpic is that above and on the right edge is a berry in focus and the ones just beside it are blurred.

I don't have anything that nice and seasonal to share but maybe some others can contribute.

Jan, I was shooting in aperture priority mode and had purposely stopped down the aperture 1 stop to f/6.3 (at 275 mm this lens has a maximum aperture of f/5.6) to get just slightly more dof ... and I mean slight. I also adjusted the ISO to 320 because of the light conditions that day which were bright but overcast. I just took what the camera gave me for shutter speed in this case.

As a point of reference, I almost always shoot in aperture priority so I can control dof ... whether that's for landscapes or in this case, avain work. There are far more available shutter speeds than there are f-stops so I can avoid exposure issues that might present themselves if I were shooting in Shutter Speed Mode. If I need to tweak the ISO based on the lighting conditions at the time so be it.

You should try your hand at it ... backyard bird photography can become addictive. Hope that helps.

Thanks Ken, I hadn't even noticed the in focus berry until you mentioned it. It slipped in to the area of sharp focus didn't it. Easy fix to apply some selective blurring, thanks for letting me know. Good catch!

I've always enjoyed your avian work, Wayne, and hope you will continue to post more of these gems. It's a great inspiration to expand my subject matter beyond landscapes. In fact, I may frame in a shooting port in my screened-in porch so I can get a little more practice. Thanks for sharing!

I see the word chickadee and I have to say it like WC Fields........