Lesser doublecollared sunbird feeding on hibiscus.

[rick93]

I took this using our Landrover defender as a hide.
C&C appreciated.

1.

2.

Thanks for looking!

 

[rick93]

I know that they are not perfect, but tips anyone on what I should do to get better shots??

 

[SamRickim]

I love the second one. I would have cropped the second one down to a square - eliminating the empty space to the right - but that's just my personal opinion. You captured its colors really well.

 

[dennisT]

Is this a heavy crop? The birds appear a little "soft" and could imo use a little sharpening. Am interested to know your aperture as would have preferred less depth of field in order to blur the back-ground and cause the birds to "stand out" a little more. In RSA the lesser double collared is now the "southern" double collared - just wonder if the two are different. Your bird is strikingly similar to the Miombo double collared. Nice pose and capture!

 

[rick93]

@ DennisT;
I cropped it a little, Aperture was f/9.0 at 1/80s ISO 800. I guess I should have used a smaller aperture and lower ISO??
I was looking for more depth to get more of the bird in focus. Was I wrong in this situation?
Thanks

 

[Joel_W]

Both pictures still need to be cropped a little tighter. Also the busy background does detract from the over all image. Controlling DOF in situations like this can be a real ***** at times.

 

[dennisT]

Depending on the focal length and aperture rating of your lens, I would have opened up to about F5.6 or maybe 6.3. This would have given you a lot more speed and a sharper image. Your image does not show any significant noise so reckon your iso is fine. Try keeping your bird pictures to a low dof and attempt to achieve a nice even bokeh. Not always easy and always easier said than done!

 

[rick93]

Thanks for the tips DennisT and Joel. The bird comes around all the time so I can try again.
I'll try to post some of the re-tries
Thanks again

 

[rick93]

I tried again today and got a couple chances. I parked the 'hide' more on the side of the flower and did some pruning to have the background leaves as far away as possible. With the help of all your tips I think they turned out pretty well. I got a good (composition) shot of the female, but I had no luck with the male as you can see. What do y'all think of these??

1. Male

2. Female

 

[rick93]

Any C&C on these last two?

 

[dennisT]

Hi Rick - just seen your new post - the female is super - the male still a little soft. Background vastly improved. I think no. 1 is somewhat overexposed - are you shooting in raw? If so try reducing the exposure a little - also you can try setting your Av at -.33 to reduce the harsh light effect.
The female is very good!

 

[rick93]

Thanks DennisT,
If it wasn't for your tips it would have never turned out that way.
I'm not shooting in raw. My camera seems to overexpose a little when I set it to AV. I saw it too late for the male. Shot the female in the AV mode and set it at -.66. I guess the quest of getting a nice shot of the male is still going (;

 

[BlackSheep]

Nice job on that last photo of the female.
What size lens are you using for these? I'm wondering if (in contrast to the above advice) you need to increase your shutter speed. The longer your lens, the higher your shutter speed needs to be to avoid camera shake, especially if you are hand holding the camera.

 

[rick93]

Hi Blacksheep,

Thanks for the comment.
I use a SP Tamron VC 70-300 for the wildlife pics.
Most of my pics are shot at the long end. Both last pics were shot at 1/80sec.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Infinite_Day]

You need a tad more focal length, unfortunately. I would also try and get the shutter speed up some - it may help the softness which could be a tad of motion blur even though you have VC. With my 300 f/4 + TC I usually have to have pretty high shutter speeds to get good, sharp photos of small birds. Of course, it has no VR and I am typically hand-holding it which doesn't help because it's a heavier lens. You're certainly improving - beautiful bird.