Robin

[BenPonti]

Taken in the garden this morning with my fairly new (2 months) Eos 50D. Still frustratingly tackling the microadjustment with the 100-400mm lens. What a job!! Hope I'm getting there.

[Lorant Voros]

Hello Ben,

Welcome to this fantastic forum; the best place to be to learn.
Nice little Robin; I have a few critics though if I may:

-BG is very noisy; did you have to move the exposure slider in ACR to the right a lot? You can try to run selective NR on it, but your exposure should be right for the first time, especially with the 50D as I hear.
-Composition would be better to have a little more room on front of the bird. If it is a crop maybe you can re-crop it.
-The bird's wing looks sharper to me than the eye...am I right?
Can you please post camera info..it would help us giving a better critic.

I am looking forward to see more posts from you. Welcome again.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Welcome to BPN, Ben! Nice first post, I like the angle, light and exposure control. The critical focus seems to be in front of the bird, you could selectively sharpen the head some more. The BG noise has been mentioned. I agree regarding noise reduction in the BG. The perch is not ideal, since this is at your feeder you could try to put a nice branch nearby where birds might wait for their turn. It's always a treat to see the European robin variety. Keep them coming and yes, please post the techs.

[Doug Brown]

Welcome to BPN Ben. You chose a nice-looking subject for your first post. From a critiquing standpoint, it helps if you include full tech details along with your images. You got good eye contact and the soft light works well. Sharpness is pretty good, but BG noise is noticeable. I agree about adding a bit of canvas on the left and perhaps taking some off of the right. I might remove the dark area in front of the bird at the bottom of the frame. What kind of issues are you having with your 100-400 that make you want to use microadjustment? Where are you located? You can add that information in the user control panel. Again, welcome to BPN!

[Tell Dickinson]

Hi Ben, I think everything has been discussed above, lovely subject though and great to practise on :)

Tell

[Harshad Barve]

Big welcome to BPN , techs has been covered
TFS

[BenPonti]

Thanks for all your comments. Here is all the shooting info. Look forward to comments and advice.
File Name _MG_3570.JPG
Camera Model Canon EOS 50D
Firmware Firmware Version 1.0.7
Shooting Date/Time 04/10/2009 09:23:02
Owner's Name
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/250
Av( Aperture Value ) 5.6
Metering Mode Spot Metering
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO Speed 1600
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Focal Length 390.0 mm
Image Size 4752x3168
Image Quality Fine
Flash Off
FE lock OFF
White Balance Mode Cloudy
AF Mode AI Focus AF
Picture Style Faithful
Sharpness 0
Contrast 0
Saturation 0
Color tone 0
Color Space Adobe RGB
Long exposure noise reduction 2:On
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Highlight tone priority 1:Enable
Auto Lighting Optimizer 0:Standard
Peripheral illumination correction Disable

Dust Delete Data No
Drive Mode Low-speed continuous shooting
Live View Shooting OFF
AF Microadjustment -5

Re. microadjustment, as you can see, I have it at -5. According to zoombrowser, the focus spot is on the robin's shoulder. If the lens is focusing in front of the focus spot, (lower down on the image), should I plus or minus this figure. I really do need some help with this, then once I get spot on sharp images, I can concentrate on composition.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Ben,
Welcome to BPN. Nice HA and composition colors are good too. Wing looks a bit sharper than head and perch can be better. Main issue here is noise in BG. You need careful noise reduction with 50D files. Regarding AF micro-adjust, please take a look at this tool http://www.precisioncaps.com/autofocux.html it is very helpful. Remember that at 400mm you need to be about 70 ft. away from target!