Birds in their habitat

[gking]

Please examine these two photos and tell me how you would make them better.
First one was taken at Mount Dora, FL and the second at the Venetian Gardens, Leesburg FL
Both photos were taken with a Canon Rebel XTi.

[mattyb240]

For me number 2 the foreground is distracting from the bird, and the bird also appears to be out of focus? Maybe its the depth of field. Maybe of the camera was lifted up slightly to reveal more of the backdrop?

Matt

[tonydee]

#1: With 1/1000s shutter speed you should be freezing all motion, with f/7.1 aperture you'd expect a decent depth of field (though it depends how close you were, but 210mm on a crop body suggests not that close), and ISO200 should degrade IQ much, so: am wondering why the bird doesn't look like it's in sharp focus. How does it look at 100%? Did you leave the lens focus switch on manual after a close-up shot? Have you had trouble with that lens generally? The image also needs a clockwise rotation.

#2: Nice scene. If the IQ is good enough (though parts look over-exposed and OOF), I'd suggest cropping more tightly around the bird - still a landscape orientation, but from a bit behind the bird across enough to include the purple flower at right, losing half the foreground under the bird, and getting in some of the horizontal strip of water lilies above the bird's head. As is, there's a lot of the image that's a bit redundant: just need enough of each thing to make a statement, but in closer gives more detail and impact.

Cheers, Tony

[gking]

Tony's comment on #1 is correct. I was not near the bird, I estimate I was over 150 feet. This particular lens was on manual since I was trying to shoot another bird to the left of this one. It is possible I did not focused manually as I should have done.
On #2 the bird kept walking around and dipping his peak in the water.
Matt's comment about the #2 matches what I was afraid of. Too busy both in the foreground and background.
Thank you both for the critiques.

[DerekSimon]

I prefer number one over the other simply because the distracting background in the shot.