Little Garden Birds

[Overread]

Well at last some sunlight - though I didn't get to be out for long - and it was blooming cold!
Anyway I tried out my 70-200mm with a 2*TC for the small birds to get a 400mm lens out of it. Results from my last experiments were not fantastic, though natural lighting was better and the subjects a bit larger - this time around I stopped my lens way down to f8 - not ideal for wildilfe at all, but I think it helped to preserve details where they might very well have been lost on such small subjects. It means losing out on the bokeh of a wider aperture, but I don't acutally mind that.
Using such a small aperture with an already darker setup I decided to use manual mode and my flash to make up for the loss of lighting and to help ensure that my shutter speed was at least acceptable for birds. I used the flash on fill with -2/3 exposure though I might try again without this - though it helps protect the whites from blowing out it does mean less power in the flash - which is already coupled with a softbox.

Anyways here are the results:
All taken with Canon 400D, Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS + 2*Teleconverter and speedlite 580M2+softbox
full exif is attached

note that 100% crops are of the edited version with selective noise removal and sharpening applied


f8, ISO 400, 1/100sec



Link to larger: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/245/3...1c02215f_o.jpg


f8, ISO 400, 1/100sec



link to larger: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/...6237778a_o.jpg

Any comments/advice/crits welcome thank you

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[xtort-]

I'm not insinuating that you shouldn't have- but why did you add noise?

[Overread]

oops - meant to say noise removal !

[lostprophet]

2nd shot is the best but.... what bird is it?

[Overread]

*still interested on input to this setup and use*
I have no idea what bird it is sadly - I really am not good with birds. It was singing though that much I do know!