Back yard Blue Jay

[Richard Stern]

I have just discovered this great site. I have been photographing birds for a long time, and have received a lot of compliments from people who have seen them in other forums, on some web sites etc. But when I compare my efforts with some of the really good ones out there, I come away feeling that mine are often really rather poor and could be significantly improved.. So I hope to improve and learn something by joining this forum. I came to bird photography through birding, and now that I have a Nikon D300 I hope to be a able to worry less about background noise etc. Another thing I have learned from this forum is the importance of cloning out fuzzy out-of-focus background distractions etc. - although as I take a lot of small birds surrounded by branches it's not always feasible.

Anyway, here's a recent effort - taken through my window here in Port Williams, Nova Scotia, Canada. Nikon D300, Tamron 200-500mm. hand-held, zoomed to 380mm. 1/250 sec, f8.0, aperture priority, ISO 200, spot-metered on the head, taken in jpeg, colors adjusted slightly in Lightroom, sharpened in Preview.

Richard

[Rosl Roessner]

A warm Welcome to you, Richard.
You are in the right forum here! I feel the same than you: a lot of friends give us good critiques, but compared with the guys here, wow, there is a lot to learn! But learning is a big fun for me and keeps me going.....

But now: your picture!
I like the high key image and the light atmosphere and colours a lot.
I think, you should crop a little form the left side, than the bird is less centered.
I would prefer the bird to turn it's head just a bit towards me. so I can come closer in contact with her.
And, least there could be a bit more light on the birds face (may be you could use fill flash?)

But I like the feeling of the picture as it is shown here!

[Alfred Forns]

Big Welcome Richard Glad you found us !!!!

Fully agree with Rosl Would also add the image could be a tad brighter You did very well keeping the lens steady At 1/250 there is not much room for error Would suggest to take advantage of the clean ISO and crank it up more I normally don't shoot much below 400 and in this case would have gone to 800 with no reservations

The camera performs well at that ISO Are you shooting at 12 bit or 14 bit For stationary subjects would go 14 all the time A few times If I need the fast rate would suggest going to 12 bit Hoping to see lots more !!!

[Nonda Surratt]

Great to have you with us Richard,

Every things been covers so like your Jay!

[Richard Stern]

Hi, and thanks for the comments so far - I normally hand-hold and shoot at anything from 800-1600 ISO, - whatever it takes to keep the shutter speed at 1/500 or faster with this lens. I can't remember why I used these settings for this particular shot. I have gone from previously shooting Raw with my D70 back to jpeg with the new D300, as jpegs seem so good and LR seems to do what I want most of the time. But if people really feel I could do better with 12 or 14 bit Raw then I'll certainly try it. I plan on posting more recent images for comments in the near future.

Richard

[George DeCamp]

Hey Richard, really nice to have you on BPN!

Agree with the prior posts on the crop etc. Always good to have a RAW file in the event you need a different crop for someone or you need to tweak a setting that needs it. Way easier to do with a RAW file.

Love to see more!!