It's been a long while since I posted here. Got busy with other stuff, almost forgot I had an account until I received a subscription renewal email.
Photographed on a setup in my back yard, bright yellow fall ash tree branches in the background in front of an evergreen.
Baited with peanuts (they LOVE peanuts!)
Canon 5D III + 600mm f/4 L II
Gitzo GT3532LS + Jobu Pro 2 gimbal
I was just sitting on my patio to the side of my house, line of sight down the line of my perch and the tree branches in the background.
My own critique...I love that I captured the bird with it's crest up and frilled out like that. It looks wonderful at full size. Head angle isn't ideal...however, I kind of like the angle it gives on the crest at the same time... I wish I had better situated the tree branches and leaves in the background to more completely cover the frame, and better angled towards the light to create a more interesting and less solid-colored background where the ash leaves blend into each other.
Pretty well rounded self critique, and I agree with all of it. Blue jays look awesome against fall foliage. Wish the body angle was more parallel to the sensor, as I don't care for the dof decreasing on such a gorgeous tail,...or smaller f-stop....not sure what the f-stop was, as it's not disclosed. Placement of the food source looks like it might be an issue here too...personally I like to place the perches behind the food source, so that if the bird's are eyeing it up, they are looking in my direction...generally..
Sorry, here is the exposure info: 1/250s f/5.6 ISO 800. Pre-sunset dim light...tough.
I agree, I should probably have been at f/8 ISO 1600. Many of the later shots actually were...not sure why this one was not.
The food source is actually a small "cup" in the perch it self, just blow the bottom edge of the frame. I can actually turn it a bit more so that the bird angles will be more appropriate next time.
Hi Jon, I think Shawn nailed the critique (or at least he said what i was going to).
It looks like you have these guys around, so I would play a bit with changing the location of the food with respect to the perch. I'd also experiment a bit with settings to see if you can find a sweet spot ... how slow of a shutter speed can you get and still have a sharp image? How much dof do you need to get 'enough' in focus? What ISO do you feel comfortable shooting at based on the previous two questions?
It seems the Blue Jays are already moving on. I only had a few days where the color and light and birds all converged. I wish I'd had better light...every day I had a chance to photograph the jays, the sun was low and there was light cloud cover, so I wasn't getting the shutter speed I needed even at higher ISO. I'd have been comfortable at ISO 1600 with a higher shutter speed...bumping up ISO while stopping down would have increased noise in the bird (which is actually already fairly high...the small image size hides it.)
Fall Blue Jay
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