Common Redpoll

[Daniel Cadieux]

While photographing a flock of redpolls this morning at a local feeder setup I had my eye on this particular perch. I waited, and waited, and waited as they landed on every other perch but this one. I persisted some more and voila...one perched right on it. Patience is a great tool for bird photography...and its free! :) I wish the stuck feather on it's foot was not there but opted to keep it.

Canon Rebel XT + 100-400L @360mm, 1/160s., f/7.1, ISO400, no EC, fill flash (FEC at 0), handheld, knees bent just so in order to avoid distracting elements in BG.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w98/dancad/tn_CommonRedpoll_1232-01.jpg

[gary rouleau]

Very pretty shot, I would have liked to see the tail a little more in focus, but that would have been tough with the branch right there.
Cheers
gary

[Taylor Yeager]

I would take the bright flash catchlight out of its eye. Still have yet to get a shot this nice of this species myself.

Taylor

[Todd Frost]

Like Taylor I've yet to get a shot of this bird either. Looks like maybe some minus flash comp would help here. I have been been doing so with my Nikon with these smaller/closer birds with my 80-400 and D300. Have not mastered the whole fill flash thing yet but doing much better with the great advice here, maybe one of the experts will chime in.
Todd