Backyard birds - Robin and Finch

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So I can't go out hunting for birds today unfortunately, but I was able to sit in my backyard and test my new (to me) lens out...I haven't been able to fine tune the autofocus with it or + the TC, but it doesnt look too incredibly far off with either. the robin is with the 600+1.7x (1020mm) @ f8 1/1000 ISO560-640, the finch is 600mm bare f4 1/1600 ISO100.

Robin:
robin_zpsfdcdb16f.jpg


robin2_zpsfbb8e7a8.jpg


Female House? Finch (backlit by the sun, I had to lighten her face up a little bit, could also be a female Cassin's finch, they're very similar):
wings_zps6d1909a8.jpg


there was a hawk circling something way off in the distance, but even at 1000mm I couldn't get much of him. oh well, another time I'll have to go raptoring...
 
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Looks nice and sharp to me! The robins with TC look sharper than the finch without. I'm assuming it was cropped much more?
 
I agree with Kris. The robins look sharp. The finch looks good but, there is something off to me about it. Almost like there is a loss of detail or a motion blur below the white chest feathers area. I would also suggest maybe a little localized brightening of the finches eye for some added pop. Just my opinion though. :)
 
Personally, I love all of them. :D Nice and sharp.
 
yeah, the finch was a much larger crop, and she was terribly backlit so I had to recover alot more shadow on her as well, which was likely the cause of the lower IQ, it probably wasn't much of a keeper shot, but I had to try processing it since she was doing a fan dance for the males in the area. All the finches were on one tree, which had terrible lighting from the angles in my yard, the robin was in another which was much better lit, plus the robin is a larger bird to begin with.
 
here's another, this is one of the only shots of a male finch I could get, they were cruizing around and putting on a show for the lady folk. its also pretty backlit.

finch_zps7f956b6f.jpg
 
It's actually a Male House Sparrow. I'm not sure where your focus point was? Judging by the fence it looks slightly back focused. With a 600 F4 you have almost no DOF so you have to be careful catching the focus point.
 
These are nice images quite sharp, considering what "length" you were shooting at. My only comment would be to watch the backgrounds. The slightly OOF branches in the robin pictures are a distraction. As well, the twigs behind the finch are a distraction, but not as bad a one as with the robin, as they are smaller. I know that as bird photographers, we often have to take what we can get, which is why I do like these. Look forward to your next ones. :mrgreen:

WesternGuy
 
oh yeah, the lens is super sharp I'm really happy with it's performance, especially with the TC on (considering this is my slowest lens at f4, with the TC makes it effectively a f6.3, but the AF speed is still VERY fast), but I do think CC is correct, the autofocus could use some fine tuning, for example that sparrow pic in post #6, the focus point is right on the eye, but the focal plane seems to be backset just slightly, it doesn't surprise me, my 300 needed a -8 fine tune by itself, and +10 with the 1.7TC on it. I don't expect it'll need tons of correction, but once I'm able to correct it I think it'll help out a good bit, I was able to tell a noticable difference before and after adjusting the AF with my 300.

of course it could just be me, I was playing with AF-C vs AF-S on some of these bird pics, and so that may be part of the issue since I normally don't use AF-C, but I'd still like to get it in a controlled environment and do some AF tests just to nail everything down.

I also agree about the branches, unfortunately I had minimal room to move around since I was in my backyard, and I'd take better light with distracting branches (like w/ the robin), over poor light w/o as much distracting branches (like w/ the finch) anyday. I REALLY want to get out to one of the wildlife refuges around here and do some shooting for the spring migration. there is one spot that is ~1 hr away that has one of the largest populations of white-faced Ibis in the continent, so my goal is to get some good Ibis shots this spring. but weather has been strange lately, so migration will probably start picking up in April.
 
600+1.7x (1020mm) :eyebrows: That's some serious mm's

Nice shots
 
hah. naw, full moons are bad for photography anyways. much more interesting with sidlighting...
 

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