Backyard Birds

I am trying to get back to taking some photographs after some time away. I recently bought a 7D to go with the Bigma and am slowly getting used to it but it is becoming increasingly clear just how much I do not know (or understand) LOL.

Anyway here are some picture of birds that I happened to see on the weekend in my back yard. The first (the Red Cardinals), I have not been able to get pictures of before so I was very happy to see them come calling.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

Pretty Cardinals John, and very nice IQ on the last especially.
What in the world is going on in the first image? The Cardinal isn't even touching the branch and it looks like it's about to be attacked by a Blue Jay that resembles a huge blow-up doll in the background -

Got to love those back yard birds. When things are slow you can always count on them being there and ready to be photographed. Well done

Thanks for the kind words. Believe it or not the Blue Jay was trying to scare off the Cardinal and was bobbing up and down. I just happened to catch the Cardinal on a hop further up the branch away from the Blue Jay. Going back and looking at it it does seem kinda strange. LOL

nicely done John

I'm glad you are seeing them. They are deep in the trees around here. Keep shooting!

Good color on the cardinals. Some lean toward more orange than a vivid red. Like the blue jay lurking in the BG. Cool shot, there.

dave

It would be most helpful fo ryou to post a clickable picture to lin to flickr or where you are uploading them to so we can see the Exif data. To me it looks like you may be shooting in either full auto mode or with ISO set to auto. The reason I say this is because there looks to be plenty of light in those shots and there is a little too much noise in them suggesting the ISO is getting cranked up too high.

Also post your AF settings for the 7D. If we can see what shutter speeds and F stop you are at we can make much more informed suggestions. The 7D is a tricky camera to get setup right. It is not one you just pull out of the box and start shooting like you can with a Rebel body. The 7D requires more thought and time to get it to produce the right results for each situation. I have only had mine for a few weeks but I have spent countless hours practicing with it in that time.

You have some great birds in your back yard so spending the time playing with settings will be fun.

I do not know what post processing software you are using but even with the DPP software that comes with the camera it will be more than enough to fix things like contrast, noise and sharpness, and even curves. For me I have found the best picture style to have it on in camera is Faithful with sharpness around 4 or 5 and set it to a white balance of sunny or cloudy even in the sun.

Sorry for rambling a bit, but I want to help as much as I can.

Those are some nice Card shots, John; we don't get those guys out on the left coast, here.

A couple of suggestions:

When you have as much light as you appear to have had there, dial your ISO back a stop or so, and open our aperture up an equivalent amount to compensate. This would give you a cleaner image where you wouldn't lose as much detail to noise and still give you plenty of DoF to capture the birds.

E.g
1/1000, f/11, ISO 1600 could just as easily have been 1/1000, f/8, ISO 800, or 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 400.

Due to general light constraints when shooting birds, I usually stay at either f/5.6 or f/8, occasionally and adjust the other two settings around that.

NA's right; the 7D is not a straight out of the box shooter to get the best results, mostly. Have you watched the video series on it over at B&H yet? If not, I highly recommend doing so, for some good tips/tricks with it.

Nice shots. That Blue Jay looks gigantic! lol

I like the last one best!