Birdie in mirror

[gail]

http://members.aol.com/gail4ev/bjbird.jpg

[Ikinaa]

Hi Gail,

the ladder is hiding part of the bird, so that already kills the pictures and i don't see a point of focus : everythings out of focus, except some feather on the left wing...
Perhaps you should try with a smaller apertue, let's say f/5.6 or f/8
and remove the ladder of course

Sorry for the negative critique (I know it hurts (a bit), I more often get negative than positive also 8) )

[gail]

That's quite ok, That's what I want is to tell me what I do wrong so the next time I can try and do better. I'm still learning all this. I think this photo looks better than one I posted a few weeks ago of the same bird.
I'm doing a little better I think,, But I no I still got a long way to go. :lol: :roll: But thanks for the comment, I appreciate it very much.

[Ikinaa]

Photographing animals or children is the same pain, they never do what you want, so what I often do is take as much pictures as possible (but not random) trying to make them all look good, so in the end there are perhaps 10 % of the pictures that are worth keeping (ok... even bad pictures of the kids are worth keeping :P )

[G3]

Gail, one of the key things to photographic animals/wildlife is to make sure the eyes are in sharp focus. Concentrate on that. When you are shooting macro or closeup, the depth of field is diminished, so that becomes even more critically important. If you have a DOF preview on your camera, make a habit of using it.

It's usually good to try to fill the frame with the subject (as you have done here), but if you have to err, it's better to err on the side of getting a little too much background in the frame. You can always crop it a little later.

[stopbath]

The ladder is poorly placed here. It is blocking the face of the bird (and reflected face too) better if it was obscuring the wing if anything.

As for focus, in this shot, a focus on the reflected face would be prefered (for me). Perhaps both faces, but since the original is facing away, I would go with the reflected.

Yes, animals are tough to photograph. They move about so much. I have lots of pictures of where the dog "was"...