Blutit

[William Dickson]

Canon 7D
300mm F/2,8
SS 1/500 F/4
ISO 800

Sharpened and cropped in CS6

Another dull and rainy day in the Cairngorm, but i liked the perch and background, where this little bird was at.

[dankearl]

Maybe too large a crop?
It seems large in the frame and a bit soft.
Beautiful little bird.

[Karl Egressy]

It would need more room at the top. I wonder how a vertical would look. Nice little bird love the colors.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

William,

Karl and Dan bring up some good points. Just a bit tight in the frame. I'd take a look at a bit of looser crop. I'd take a look at a vertical crop too.

I think the softness of the image may be attributed to the shallow depth of field. With such small birds you are usually working at short distances so you really need to close up that aperture a bit more.

Miguel

[Marina Scarr]

You have a little stunner here. Exposure looks good and love the colors and BG. The perch is a tad large for such small tootsies. I would go with a wider crop and add some sharpening.

[Diane Miller]

Looks like a gorgeous bird. A vertical would have been nice here -- going vertical with the camera, that is, to include more on top and bottom.

It's really soft for that lens. You really can't sharpen beyond what you captured. Looking very carefully at the end of the perch, it looks like the focus point was behind the bird. It isn't easy but try to keep a focus point right on the bird's face when the shot is made. Shoot bursts and expect that only a small percent will be good. DOF is smaller than you would expect.

A smaller aperture will help some, but not as much as this one needs.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi William, 'The Eagle has landed', LOL.

Overall it's a little big in frame and I feel if you are going for something like this, then perhaps pushing things more to the right may be better? Looks very saturated and the blacks look a little choked? I would certainly ease off on the Blue. You also need more DoF, but I know you are fighting light, however...

Glad you found the various locations, May should be good.

TFS
Steve

[Bryan Munn]

Beautiful colors and interesting perch. I agree with the others, the photo would benefit from more room at the top. I prefer with "songbird" shots that the bird is not facing directly at the camera, but that's just me.

Spectacular bird and good capture though. I would be thrilled just to see that bird.