Great Blue

[Nick Palmieri]

Canon EOS40D, 100-400 w/1.4TC at 560mm, ISO 800, f/8, 1/1000s. Taken at a Beaver Pond in Wilmington NY. There was actually some nests but they were very high and too far to photograph with my equipment.

[BillTyler]

Nice pose. And I like the way the light just catches the edges of some of the feathers. The tree in the background bothers me a bit because it's so close to the bird in color that the head doesn't stand out as much as I'd like. Could you have moved a bit to get the head against a smoother background?

Bill

[Lance Peters]

Hi Nick - Looking a little under exposed to me - However the angle of the light being what it is has given you a couple of bright spots on the front of the bird.
Looks very soft on my screen - should have had enough shutter speed - so I am going to say this is down to camera shake - you did not mention if you were shooting handheld or on a tripod. I am sure that les converter combo is capable of sharp results.
The BG is a bit busy with colours that closely match your bird as a result he isn't poping out from the BG as much as yuo would like.
Keep a eye on whats in the BG and move around if you can to try and improve your BG beofre pressing the shutter button.

Keep em coming.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Nick I know in your area those birds are more difficult to photograph, would try moving around for a better bg if possible and shooting wide open for less depth of field !!!

... btw if they nest they have to look for branches and flight would be a good option !!!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice shot, the techs have been well covered. The f8 hurts as Al mentioned, it brings all the bg into play. I have a 40D and when I use ISO over 500 my images suffer quality loss (e.g., flat/fuzzy images) I see this in your images to some extent.

It could just be me, but try to keep ISO =< 400 for best results. To increase shutter, shoot wide open (e.g., 4,5) and find good light. I purchased a light meter and measure light. Using an ISO setting = 400, if I cannot find light to support at least 5.6 @ 500, I will use flash or work on cleaning up my hard drive.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Nick,
I like what you were trying to do...agree on the techs. and fine advise given...the first thing that captures my attention is the under exposed image and the burst of out of focus branches that is coming out of the bird's head...for your next one, try getting a different angle by walking around with your camera and watching your backgrounds...looking forward to your next one...:cool: