Great Tit

[Jonathan Ashton]

Shot taken from garden hide Canon 7D Canon 500mm f4 L IS tripod head ISO 800-0.3 1/1250 sec f5.6. I repositioned the feeder to alter the background a little, I have not applied any noise reduction, I am curious to read what you may feel about this.
All C & C welcome.

[Mital Patel]

I am feeling sad jonathan. Why this is not mine ?

But at the same time happy to see a great attempt. Am sure you would want to change your hide next time so that you get the HA perfectly along with better body visible and wing stretched with little more speed to freeze these speedsters.

[Ron Sprunger]

No need for noise reduction that I can see on my small work monitor. BG's great, agree with Mital that better HA would be nice. If 1/1250 didn't stop him, I don't imagine 1/2500 would have either, except maybe the feet. But then you'd have had to go to f/4 or ISO 1600, so I'm happy with what you have. I haven't even tried to catch these small fast birds in flight, and it looks very difficult. I like the image.

[Andrew Merwin]

I agree re. the HA. I do like the blurred wings, feet & tail as it shows motion. Overall, I like the image very much. I would be very pleased to have shot this image.

[Karl Egressy]

The picture looks great as is. Next time you might consider trading f stop for shutter speed, Jonathan.
The 500 is pretty good even at f4.0.

[Arthur Morris]

It does seem as if your birds are always facing away.... Unless I am mistaken. Changing something in the set-up would seem to be a very good plan as it is otherwise very nice if not spectacular.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for the comments everyone, I have been moving the feeder to try to optimise the angle of the bird's approach. I am assuming you are indicating that a more angled view would be better - something like 20 degrees so that the bird appears to be looking toward the camera. A lot depends on the breeze and other birds' arrival, as the feeder moves the bird's alter their angle of approach and as you might guess the success rate is not high. I will keep plugging at it and as ever, I welcome your suggestions.

[arash_hazeghi]

great BG, I agree it is best to position yourself such that the brid would be facing you when trying to land. Most brids prefer to land agsint the wing to make it easier so perhaps you can setup your blind in the wind direction. There is some noise on the tail and wings you may want to remove.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the comments everyone, I have been moving the feeder to try to optimise the angle of the bird's approach. I am assuming you are indicating that a more angled view would be better - something like 20 degrees so that the bird appears to be looking toward the camera. A lot depends on the breeze and other birds' arrival, as the feeder moves the bird's alter their angle of approach and as you might guess the success rate is not high. I will keep plugging at it and as ever, I welcome your suggestions.

Jon, For me, it is not a matter of where the bird appears to be looking, it is simply a matter of the orientation of the bird's body to the imaging sensor; either square to or angled slightly towards your position would be ideal.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Jon, For me, it is not a matter of where the bird appears to be looking, it is simply a matter of the orientation of the bird's body to the imaging sensor; either square to or angled slightly towards your position would be ideal.

Thanks Arash and Artie, just for the sake of clarity is this more along the lines you are indicating:

[arash_hazeghi]

the pose in the last one is so much better, however the details are a bit soft either from motion blur or focus and the light angle was a bit harsh. A faster shutter speed will help here. It's a tough subject and it takes many tries before you get the killer frame

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Arash and Artie, just for the sake of clarity is this more along the lines you are indicating:

Yes. As I said, anything from square to the back of the camera to coming right at you is generally gonna be better than having the bird facing or angled away from you. All things being equal....