white-throated sparrow

[Dave Slaughter]

White-throated sparrow in leaf litter. Difficult lighting, causing suboptimal iso and shutter speed settings. Still came out ok in my opinion. These were the first sparrows I learned to identify by voice. Thanks for looking and taking the time to comment.

Canon 300d
sigma 170-500 lens at 500 mm
ISO 800
1/100
f6.3

[Gail Spitler]

Hi Dave
The bird is terrific - sharp, composition good, probably looking down isn't perfect, but sometimes you gotta take what you can get. You are doing a wonderful job of getting up close and personal with these songbirds. It's the surroundings that detract from the whole image. Maybe open up more, shoot at f/2.8 or f/4.0?

Gail

[Dan Brown]

Hi Dave. I agree with Gail on all accounts. From your comments, I assume that you had your lens wide open, so the BG is the best you could do in camera. you couls blur it in PS. I would try lightening the eye a bit. I like the selective focus, but I would also like to see those feet sharp! We want everything, blurred BG and sharp feet:D! Dan Brown

[Nonda Surratt]

I'm just going to echo Gail and Dan. Good job in getting close Dave!

[Dave Slaughter]

You're right, Doug, the lens was wide open. In my humble opinion the sigma 170-500 lens is one of the great deals on the planet. It's relatively inexpensive compared to any other long lens, and used correctly I think it gives good results, but it is slow (which is probably one reason it doesn't take a second mortgage to buy it). I did have it wide open. This of course makes for a very shallow depth of field which is why the feet are soft. That's the price you pay for shutter speed.

[Arthur Morris]

The head angle (with the bird looking down) is a bigger problem for me than the oof legs... The eye is sharp (and that is all that matters to me).

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Dave, agree with above comments. Bird is sharp and colors are great.

[Arthur Morris]

I should have explained above that even in the soft light, with the bird looking down that there was not much light on the face. Had you lightened the face and the iris, I would have been fine with the head angle... Sorry for not being more detailed in my ORIG critique.