Midwestern Gold Finch

[kbreit]

I saw that there was a post (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=75057) about gold finches. Well, it doesn't look like our gold finches here in the Chicago area, so I thought I'd post a picture of ours. I had an awful hard time getting one. The photo was taken with a 28-200mm lens with my 350D. I was in At mode, 1/25 and f7.1 at 200mm with the lens and 100 ISO. If anyone could give some feedback, I'd appreciate that.
http://kbreit.dyndns.org:8080/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core:DownloadItem&g2_itemId=32097&g2_serialNumber=2

[kbreit]

Okay, that didn't post. Here it is, for real.

http://kbreit.dyndns.org:8080/code/IMG_0205.JPG

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

1/25th? Try driving up the ISO to something like 200-400 to get a 1/200th plus shutter speed. Produces far sharper pics. Also, the bokeh (background blur) is very distracting. Not very pleasing at all. That's just because of the lens though I guess. Better lens = better bokeh. And f/7.1? I guess that's an alright apeture, but I typically shoot f/4-f/5.6. I find it gives better results for birds.

It's a nice pic though! Very cute bird, and birds are very hard to shoot especially with a 200mm lens. I've given it a few trys myself.

taken with 70-200 f/4L
First shot Av mode, ISO 200, 1/200th, f/4.0

Second one was 1/3200th to freeze the bird, f/4.0, all that good stuff.