The nibbling chickadee - NJ, USA

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8090/8...036bf4_b_d.jpg

A week ago, on a winter weekend at Losen Slote Creek Park in NJ, I came across a dozen chickadees feeding on and around the trail. I sat still for almost 30 minutes when this bird perched about 7 feet away and I was able to click it with a newly acquired 300mm f/2.8 lens. The birds were trying to pick seeds from some prickly coniferous cones (Google Image search shows "Beech" or "Prickly Bur" as the best matching ones). Once they had pried out the tiny seeds(?) out of the cones, this after some effort, they carried it off to a perch to eat it. This chickadee was doing just that. Temperature was in the 20s, my fingers were freezing despite the gloves...

The original picture was clicked in horizontal orientation and the bottom edge was about where the lowest branch ends. I cloned a strip of plain background just below the tip of the lowest branch to give more "head room" towards the bottom. Minor contrast / WB / saturation adjustments in addition.

Clicked with a Nikon D200 and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 ED-IF (non AF-S) lens at f/5.6, 1/500s, ISO 200. The bird was very close to the closest focus point of the lens, I am not sure if it would have been possible to get the entire bird in focus from this distance.... I'd appreciate any comments on how this image can be improved. Also any tips on how to shoot such subjects from close distance, e.g. what aperture to use would be appreciated too.

Thanks for watching.

Hi Nikhil,

First of all, welcome to BPN! This is a great place to learn, get honest critiques, and give honest feedback. I look forward to seeing some more posts from you!

On to the image ... It's a very different pose than we normally see for these guys, and I like it! Your assessment of the dof is dead on. Both in that you need more, and that you may not have been able to get as much as you wanted at that distance. With that said, I would have at least gone to f/8 ISO400 or maybe even f/11 ISO800 to get just a sliver more.

If you are up for it, I would consider removing the two off branches in the bg.

Miguel

What a little cutie pie. You made a smart move going from horizontal to vertical for this particular scene, and good job on adding canvas. Very cool behavior, although I wish I could see more of the eye and it were a little lower as far as angle. Could you have moved to your right at all?

I see that you are using ISO 200. Unless your particular body can't handle it, there really wouldn't be any reason to use anything less than ISO 400 when photographing birds. This gives you either more depth of field (DOF) or speed, whichever you need at the time.

Thanks for posting and looking forward to more.

Miguel and Marina - Thank you for the warm welcome and for taking the time to offer thoughtful suggestions. I'll keep those in mind when I go out to shoot birds again.