Violet Green Swallow

[Susan Griffith]

we have a nesting pair of violet green swallows in our eves this summer, so i am using out house as a blind to practice with a Canon 500mm F4 lens. I am still not very proficient with this longer lens yet, but am trying to practice good long lens technique. Any advice on long lens technique, photoshop improvements etc are very welcome.

Canon 5Dm2
500mm F4 @ F4
1/125 sec
ISO 400

And this was a substantial crop (about 25% of the total image)

-Susan

[Dave Mills]

Hi Susan,beautiful swallow of a variety I've never seen.
The bird appears to be soft which might be due to camera shake,bird movement(using a slow SS) or focusing the wrong area. There are a number of variables why the bird is soft.Also that drastic a crop doesn't help retaining detail in the bird either.
The lighting appears to be even,good diagonal perch with a nicely muted backround...

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Susan Your camera can produce outstanding quality at much higher ISO !! Do not hesitate to go 1600 or over !! We have had some incredible post at high ISO from Arash !!! ...I think the low shutter speed got you !! .. do like the pretty bg and bird placement, perch is interesting !!!

[arash_hazeghi]

A 25% crop should be no problem with 5D2, I have produced 8% crops with excellent detail with this camera. I think the focus was on the cable in front of the bird and way low shutter speed, I would crank up the ISO to 3200 for this one, not a problem with 5d2.